


The Video

by cyaneyesullivan



Series: youngpilwoon love triangles [3]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Bullying, Fluff, High School, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Smut, Some angst, implicit sexual content, it's a dopil, like fingering, very minor youngpil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2020-10-28 02:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20770853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyaneyesullivan/pseuds/cyaneyesullivan
Summary: How could Dowoon have known that innocuously stumbling upon a video would tilt his whole world upside down?





	1. (1)

**Author's Note:**

> got back to stanning day6 !
> 
> this chapter might seem boring and angsty, and while i'm sorry for the former, the angst won't be heavy in this
> 
> so, i hope you enjoy? :D

Sleep was weighing down on him. He shifted with discomfort on his own bed, limbs laced with fatigue. In the haze of semi-slumber, Dowoon could inevitably feel a hard object poking through his ribs and vibrating against the tousled sheets. 

He grouched unhappily, brows pinching into a frown. Although the sound was muffled, the object kept vibrating under his side in an aggravating determination to wake him up. 

Peeling his lids open had never been done with as much difficulty. It took him a few minutes to gather his bearings and recognise the worn poster of Marriah Carrey fixed at the back of his bedroom door. 

Once his blurry sight cleared, Dowoon swiped around his bed in lethargic search of his phone. The tangled sheets made the easy job unnecessarily more laborious. A few of his strewn homework that had been ignored for the past three hours fell to the ground and joined the various piles of neglected laundry. 

The phone had stopped vibrating by the time Dowoon found it. Squinting through his messages, he suppressed a sigh of exasperation when he examined the 7 missed calls from his friend. He briefly envisaged calling back before tossing the device away in favour of reaching for his homework on the floor. 

He was only a few drowsy seconds into his math assignment when his phone went off in bursts again. Not without cursing lightly under his breath, Dowoon picked up.

“What do you want?” he sighed.

“You _ have _to see this bro,” the voice on the other end told him. Dowoon rolled his eyes, already regretting putting up with his friend’s idiotic desideratum. He didn’t bother with an answer, but he didn’t need to; his friend forwarded a link to his messenger. 

“It’s like, super viral. The whole school has seen it, and since I know you barely care about shit, I might as well send it to you,” his friend’s tinny voice said. He sounded proud, like he was doing Dowoon a service. 

“I don’t want to deal with your bullshit right now,” Dowoon emotionlessly responded, setting his phone on speaker and entering the messenger app nonetheless. 

“You’re _ not _going to regret this,” his friend promised, “it’s this week’s full course meal, and probably this whole month’s.”

Wondering what his friend meant by that, Dowoon tapped on the link that was sent to him. It lent itself to an anonymous Facebook page with only one video made public. No other information was given away. 

Without much thought, Dowoon played the footage, not noticing the absence of a thumbnail. Immediately, he frowned. His ears began to burn against his will.

“What the fuck, Sungsoo?” he said, on the brink of exiting the application.

“Just keep watching it,” were the mirthful words that stopped him. 

He unenthusiastically obliged, regardless of morals. The more he observed the footage, the less he could believe that he was actually witnessing a guy’s bare clavicles being sucked by a ripped guy that looked like he spent a vast measure of his time working out. The video played in low-quality pixelation, but anyone with working eyes could tell what was going on.

“Are you at the good part yet?” 

“You’re sick,” Dowoon replied. Despite himself, he hadn’t yet tore his eyes away from the screen. The fit guy’s back flexed in a sign of exertion, and underneath his mass, the leaner boy threw his head back in sheer delight. Indistinct sounds resounded from his phone.

Two guys were involved in the footage: one with broad shoulders but with his back facing the camera. Nothing about his identity could possibly be revealed. The other boy, though, was completely in the nude, exposed to the world’s eyes. In fact, the camera’s focus was settled almost undividedly on him. It was much like watching porn, Dowoon would know, but narrowed down to a much subdued format. 

Eventually, he came to know which part was the good part that his friend mentioned. Not finishing the video, Dowoon whispered to his friend how dumb it was and ended the call. He found himself hovering over the video for a second too long before closing all tabs and once again flinging his phone to the other side of the bed. 

A way into his abandoned homework, he was shortly interrupted by his mom invading his personal territory to pat his cheeks and tell him how committed of a boy he was. Dowoon assumed a pretense of said committed boy in her presence, and dropped his head between his elbows atop his stack of papers, drifting off once she flaked out of sight.

All thought of the video had hereby been forgotten. 

  


—

  


In the passing, Dowoon involuntarily learned that one of the two boys’ name was Kim Wonpil. He didn’t need to watch the video past half of it to know that he was the unfortunate one that lugged all the weight of shame on his shoulders when the beginning of the week unfurled. The resemblance was pretty straightforward. _ Broad Shoulders _, however, had yet to be pegged to a name and face. 

He lazily chewed on the last remnant of his gum’s flavour as he inspected Kim Wonpil’s back. It was the first time Dowoon had seen him in the flesh since the video had been leaked.

As a matter of fact, it was the first time he’d ever taken notice of Wonpil _ period _. He’d fleetingly heard some vulgar input being spread about the poor boy around the school, but essentially regarded very little consideration towards the issue. 

Wonpil was seated at a picnic table, seemingly reviewing some notes and eating late lunch in tandem. A book was split open between his thighs, white earphones pinned in his ears. The afternoon was too bright for a lonely day in autumn, the bleak sun pouring down on him in a smooth line. It was a sight so innocuously simple, but there was nothing pleasant about being shunned. 

In his position under a tree, Dowoon shook his head. They were both supposed to have class. Though Dowoon had no legitimate reason to skip, he couldn’t take that freedom away from Wonpil.

“That’s him,” Sungsoo said in a low voice next to his ear.

“You’re too close,” Dowoon steered backwards and shrugged him off, biting back a conscious _ I know _. 

“Did you hear me? That’s Kim Wonpil.” 

“I don’t care,” Dowoon monotonously droned, closely spying Wonpil stretching his neck and leaning his face into the sunrays. Wonpil’s auburn hair and earphones swayed along the breeze, and if Dowoon didn’t know better, he would have branded him as the type of person who had their life perfectly whipped into shape. That obviously was a feeble semblance. 

“Is he also from here?” he asked in the stream of his daze, genuinely wondering if their remote, tiny town really did spit someone like Wonpil into existence. 

“So do you care or not?” Sungsoo stabbed an elbow into his ribs, lips curled into the badgering grin Dowoon itched to wipe off with a fist. He elbowed back in a subtle form of menace. 

Dowoon ignored his friend out of spite, which strangely dragged an answer out of him, “no he’s not. He’s from Busan. Apparently came here only a few months ago.”

“That’s sad,” Dowoon said as he believed. 

“Huh,” Sungsoo unsympathetically griped, “he sleeps around a lot, that’s all he does. His grades dropped so low he had to move. Can you imagine that for a highschool student? That’s messed up.” 

Dowoon had recurrently heard this rumor phrased in the same exact words the past few days. He was not surprised in the least to hear it from Sungsoo. Indifferent, he sorely thought of his shift at the convenience store later today. It engineered a sigh out of him. 

Sungsoo mistook it as a sign of interest. “Yeah, I know right, he’s supposed to be a year older than us, which means he’s supposed to have graduated. Is it even possible to have so much sex to the point of not graduating?”

Dowoon blinked, asking himself why Wonpil’s head was still tilted forth in a questionable attempt at photosynthesis. He couldn’t help but pick up on the long slope of his neck, pale like he’d dropped bleach on himself. 

“Dowoon?”

“Hm? Oh, that’s sad,” he listlessly claimed. 

“Not sadder than your entire existence, bro, I mean look at you. Do you even have a soul?” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” he said. In the distance, Wonpil buried his head in his arms and seemed to have faded into another reality. Dowoon couldn’t blame him. The past week would be insufferable for anyone in his shoes. 

“What happened to you bro? You used to be more lively than this.” Silence, and then a nudge to which Dowoon reacted with a disgruntled shake of his shoulder. “Hey, Woon.”

“What?” Dowoon hummed around his bland gum, completely distracted from the response.

Sungsoo heaved a sigh, scratched his head, and got to his feet. “Nevermind. You want to get some food? I'm hungry.” 

Dowoon emulated his friend’s actions and dusted himself off when he stood. Before following Sungsoo to the cafeteria, he threw one last glance over his shoulder, just as Wonpil lifted his eyes to meet his gaze. Dowoon let his stare linger for a moment longer, and disappeared into the hallway. 

  


—

  


The school’s restroom bore a distinctive smell of javel as it usually seemed to at this time of day. As the final bell had just dismissed all classes, a clutter of students loitered around in the toilet for reasons Dowoon didn’t care to find out. 

Most of them were on their phones, and the rest that were not passively watched behind their friend’s shoulders. Sure enough, everyone was involved in the same predictable activity. It didn’t take Sherlock’s puzzle-solving magic to know what they were gossiping about.

“Oh my God, did you see that?”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Oh! That’s nasty!”

“What’s he doing now?”

“That looks like it hurts!”

Amidst the obnoxious chatter, Dowoon zipped up his pants and shouldered his way through the crowd, uncaring of whose foot he might step on. 

As he lathered his hands with soap, he chanced a glimpse at a random student’s phone. He rolled his eyes in disdain when he spotted a fragment of Wonpil’s face, and decided four minutes was too much time wasted in a highschool restroom. 

He threaded his way out, wiping his hands on the fabric of his shorts. He still had quite a long way ahead of him before today would end, and in that moment of frustration, Dowoon inwardly wished he could pay the huge debt he owed to sleep. 

The classroom in which his collective tutor lesson took place was quiet and vacant. Dowoon pinned his hopes on the seat at the rearmost row tucked in a peaceful corner. He tossed his backpack in a slovenly display of complete loss of responsive wits and threw himself on the chair. Folding his arms over the table, he ensconced himself into the self-made pillow. 

Semi-slumber seemed to be the exclusive form of rest he’d ever procure. Partly awake, he became faintly aware of the sound of a geography course being lead and some jibber jabber he found meaningless. 

The next time he picked his head up and opened his eyes, it was like the classroom had never been filled with anyone other than himself. The room was significantly darker, no longer illuminated by natural light from the window. Just as he hadn’t bothered with pulling out a book, nobody had bothered waking him up and had all gone home.

A lone janitor was dusting the teacher’s desk, whistling to himself, completely unconcerned about Dowoon’s presence. 

Sluggish, he came to a raise and trailed his backpack behind him. Although the janitor had earphones jammed in his ears and eyes fixed on the already clean surface of the desk, Dowoon still waved goodbye on his way out. 

The sun had long disappeared below the steep horizon when Dowoon stepped out of the school’s enclosed space. With a sigh, he dragged his feet to the bus stop, quiescent under a moonless raven sky. 

When he stepped upon the demarcated pavement, a girl he thought was in one of his classes greeted him with a smile, and Dowoon wasn’t very troubled in responding adequately. Soon enough, her bus pulled over and she drifted off with it, leaving Dowoon utterly, faultlessly alone. 

He found company in his phone and the empty bench as he waited for his ride, idly scrolling through the little social media resource he had access to. The night was somewhat breezy and damp, darker than any. Not even the screeching crickets made the area feel less hollow. 

“Sorry,” a voice interrupted his investigation. Dowoon reflexively flattened his phone against his thigh and lifted his gaze. For one reason or another, he was hardly surprised to be met with Wonpil’s level eyes hammering him in place. 

“Yeah?” he replied. 

Wonpil fixed him with a look of total detachment, as though lost in contemplation. Then, he spoke in a resigned manner, “what bus should I take to get to Magnolia district?”

Dowoon briefly recalled the area before realising that it was a stop away from the convenience store he worked in. 

“No. 4,” he concisely answered and narrowed his eyes.

“Alright.” 

Wonpil’s lips twitched into what would normally be a smile, but judging by the state of his black-rimmed eyes and unfocused scrutiny, Dowoon would rather call it a pathetic excuse of an attempt. The constipated look on his face told Dowoon he'd more willingly ask for advice from a wall than face another human being.

Approximately 5 dreadful minutes passed in ghost-like silence, Dowoon drumming his fingers on his knee, and if they hadn’t talked, he wouldn’t even have known that Wonpil was sitting to his right. The crickets did not relent in their chanting.

Their designed bus pulled over the curb. Dowoon scurried inside to find a seat, which took a few seconds considering the time of the day and the general population of their town. 

Wonpil followed like a shadow, quiet and almost imperceptible. To Dowoon’s best knowledge, every single seat but his was available for use, but Wonpil obstinately remained standing, finding support on the handle. He missed it a couple of times before properly hooking his hand in the loop. 

Dowoon snorted and looked away. 

He’d nearly nodded off to sleep, but Wonpil slicing his way in front of him to the exit pulled him back into a thorough state of awakeness. 

“Not this stop,” he grouched. Wonpil froze in the middle of his tracks and pursed his lips.

“Okay,” he mumbled, retracting himself to where he stood. 

“Next two stops,” Dowoon clarified.

“Okay.” 

Two stops later, Wonpil got off the bus, towing with him his dispirited element. His figure withdrew into the night, the pink backpack slung over his shoulder the only indication that he really was walking the worn streets of Magnolia district. 

The bus stuttered forward with only Dowoon and the driver on board, putting more distance between Wonpil’s receding silhouette and the vehicle. 

Later, as Dowoon finally clocked into his shift, he was struck with the sudden recollection that Magnolia district prevailed with whorehouses and strip clubs. As a customer entered the store at such an ungodly hour, Dowoon shrugged and forgot everything about Wonpil for the rest of the night.


	2. (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dowoon, Wonpil and the motions of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy? :'D

His mashed potatoes had a strange appeal, Dowoon was under the vague impression that it would later give him a bad time in the toilet if he kept consuming it. 

Resigned, he abandoned his spoon beside his tray. He shifted his attention to his friends sitting around him and made an effort to tune in to their conversation. He didn’t need the least bit of context to pick up on the essence of their topic.

“He’s the one who leaked the video,” he heard Sungsoo say, having forgotten to swallow his food. Dowoon cringed at his mouthful of the same infested mashed potatoes. 

“Does Kim Wonpil really have the face of someone who’d voluntarily dig himself a grave and lay in it? Don’t be stupid,” Taeyung argued, and assumed a pensive face. “He looks like he’d die if he tripped.”

“Who else could it be?” Sungsoo retaliated, “the video had a _ date _, which means it has been recorded with a camera. Unless you’re thinking someone had broken into his house to place the camera in broad daylight, then it’s totally theirs, either of them.”

“I don’t see why you’d rule out the possibility, you know, for blackmail material.”

“Are you dumb? Because if it wasn’t intended, then they would’ve seen it and gotten rid of it.” 

“Okay, that’s one thing, but that still doesn’t explain who leaked the video. Do you really think he did it to himself?” Taeyung conceded, pointing his chopsticks at Sungsoo in pseudo scorn. The latter was in the midst of shoving another spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth when something seemed to have flared in his mind.

“The other guy,” he enlightened.

Taeyung tilted his head. “What other guy?”

“Idiot,” Sungsoo rolled his eyes, “the guy who fucked Wonpil.”

“Who’s he anyway?” Dowoon suddenly spoke up. Two pairs of eyes fell upon him, both bearing befuddlement. He felt moderately bad for contributing to this frivolous discussion.

“A friend?” Taeyung suggested.

“No, a _ lover _,” Sungsoo defended. 

“Friends with benefits?” 

“Really?” Dowoon raised a brow. “At fourteen?”

His friends blinked at him, before Taeyung voiced his query, “how do you know he was fourteen in the video?”

He shrugged in response, picking up his spoon and tapping the mashed potatoes with it. “The date was 2015. That was four years ago.”

At that, both Sungsoo and Taeyun exchanged a look that revealed their surprise at Dowoon’s off-kilter investment.

“You must have watched it many times,” Sungsoo wiggled his brows. “I bet you jacked off to it too.” Dowoon stopped playing with his food and stared into Sungsoo’s eyes dead-on. 

“Eat shit Sungsoo,” he said.

Sensing Dowoon’s irritation, they resumed their discussion.

“Anyway, whoever this other guy is, it’s not important,” Sungsoo said. “There’s a good chance that he’s the one who leaked the video.”

“You guys are amateurs,” their third friend, Hyorin, intervened. Her hand was holding her phone as it permanently seemed to be, and her food was untouched. Dowoon thought she should learn to sort her priorities. “You guys want to know who the other guy is?”

“You _ know _?” Taeyung asked, his face borrowing that of a child’s when promised candy. 

Hyorin finally lost the steel concentration she had on her phone whenever it was anywhere within proximity. She set the device on the table and leaned in as though to whisper a secret that would destroy a person’s entire will to live. “I heard he’s three years older than Wonpil, qualified in Busan’s basketball club, tall and busted as hell. Kang something. He’s now in college, obviously, but they’d apparently grown up together.” 

“Dang,” Taeyung mused, gaze strictly settled on his silverware. 

“Yep, right out of a teenage girl’s wet dreams,” Hyorin agreed with a grin. Dowoon frowned. 

“Huh,” Sungsoo huffed, “both from Busan. Makes sense.”

Hyorin peered over at Dowoon with the single-minded kind of attention that he couldn’t quite assimilate. She laced her manicured fingers together and placed her chin atop of them. It was like she was satisfied to know something that Dowoon didn’t.

“So,” she said, still looking at Dowoon, “what do you think of this Woon?”

He raised a provocative brow. “I think it’s time to stop obsessing over a goddamn video,” he answered. Hyorin scoffed and leaned back, stretching her limbs.

“You’re boring,” Hyorin said in between grunts of delight at her bones cracking. Dowoon wasn’t sure whether or not to be appalled that his friends derived pleasure from beholding another person’s descent to their demise. It was almost expected of them.

Dowoon didn’t say anything and stood up to empty his tray of food in the trash. As he traipsed towards the main area of the school, already planning on skipping his next class, he watched the clouds drifting by overhead. It was a good way into October, but the sun still glared back like summer hadn’t yet run its course. 

As he settled into his customary spot under a tree, he noticed a slim figure partly hidden by another tree in the vicinity. A variety of books was scattered around the sitting body, the white laces of earphones dangled out of their ears. 

Immediately, Dowoon identified Wonpil. It wasn’t difficult to these days. It came off as no surprise to him, only isolated people would find refuge under a tree’s dappled shadows. 

He suddenly acquired the thought of _ Kang-what’s-his-face _, and squinted over to where Wonpil was shielding himself from the world’s intruding eyes. He was writing something down in his notebook, long hair spilling over the back of his neck.

Shoving earphones into his own ears, Dowoon didn’t instantly get into rehearsing his daily dose of finger-drumming. Instead, he wondered about the strange nature of Hyorin’s insight on _ Kang _, how she’d gleaned so much sourceless information about him, and why his other friends were so susceptible. 

“You never wait for us,” Dowoon heard Taeyung’s voice through the music blaring in his ears. The only emotion he exhibited was his total disinterest in the form of shutting lids.

His three friends sank down on the grass around him, Dowoon could tell by the faint sound of grass scrunching. One of his earphones was ripped away and Dowoon grit his teeth in conspicuous annoyance.

“What?” he grinded out. Hyorin was looking at him with a smile on her face when he opened his eyes. To the untrained eye, she held the guise of an unoffending child.

“Your Facebook is littered with naked women, you know,” she teased with a giggle. Leaving his Facebook account to Hyorin would always remain one of Dowoon’s greatest regrets. He resented himself for thinking that going through the trouble of changing his password was worth naught. He was pretty obviously wrong.

“So?” Dowoon wrenched his earphone back from where it was swaying in Hyorin’s weak clutch. The other chuckled, seeming to relish in seeing an irate Dowoon.

“Pervert. Are you sexually deprived?”

Hyorin had placed herself on a pedestal so high she thought her behavior allowed for carefree judgment upon the rest of the world. It was a universal truth. 

Dowoon snorted, placing his earphone back into his ear. “Come down from your high horse and kiss my ass.”

If Hyorin said anything else, Dowoon didn’t hear any of it. 

He put up a pretty convincing performance of a tired man dozing off against a tree, it seemed, because his normally petulant friends did not once disturb him. 

The bell rang and while everyone else scrambled to get to class, Dowoon lurched to his feet and found his way to the canteen, where he was sure no teacher would be lurking around with only one purpose in mind. 

As he loosely inspected the choices of food which was presented to him on the noodle stall, he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. He unreleased one side of his earphones and peered behind himself.

Wonpil stood there, appropriating the perfect archetype of a person devoid of feelings. Hair swept in various directions, eyes that looked like they had seen better days, lips permanently tugged down by more than just the earth’s natural gravity. His finger still hovered in the air, chapped lips parted.

Before Dowoon forgot that he had been addressed, he gestured for Wonpil to speak. The first beacon of life emerged in the form of Wonpil’s flushed ears. 

“Hi, you’re…?” Wonpil prompted. His hoarse voice tickled Dowoon’s ears.

“Dowoon,” he said simply. 

“Oh, Dowoon,” Wonpil looked away and licked his lips. “I just wanted to thank you for the other day. I don’t know why I forgot, it completely flew over my head.”

“For what?” he frowned.

“Uh,” Wonpil stuttered, eyes softly flickering in the light above them. “For giving me directions. I just tend to get lost easily, and I’m still pretty unaccustomed here.” His chuckle bore the broken note of self-derogation. “So thanks.”

Memory refreshed, Dowoon nodded, “that’s ok.” He shifted on his feet and began walking. Wonpil followed, keeping up with his pace.

They lapsed into silence. Dowoon had no clue where they were going, or why Wonpil was interested in his gellid company in the first place, but they eventually came to a stop at one of the tables in the canteen. Wonpil appointed himself the seat opposite of Dowoon. 

“Skipping?” he asked without preamble, and pursed his lips when Dowoon met his eyes. 

To his own surprise, Dowoon let himself snort in amusement. “Says you.”

Wonpil didn’t respond, and they stayed that way for a moment that seemed to last forever. The cramped table did not allow much for space, and their knees occasionally bumped into each other. 

Without anything else to do, he was almost forced to examine the pink tote bag that was resting in Wonpil’s clutch, peacefully snuggled against his chest. It was smudged by faint traces of dirt, and for some reason, an obstinate stripe of neon green paint. The tips of a pair of drumsticks poked out of the opening.

“You play drums?” Dowoon asked.

“Huh?” Wonpil startled out of his wits and treated Dowoon to a confounded look. His eyes were crossed, Dowoon had just then noticed. 

Dowoon gesticulated to his bag. “These.”

“Oh,” Wonpil’s sight dropped to the pair of drumsticks and flicked back to Dowoon. “They’re not mine. I have to give them back to someone.” He paused for a moment, gaze stabbed with contemplation. 

There was something about Wonpil that screamed _ lost _. Perhaps it was in the general way that he carried himself. It seemed as though his mind drew a constant blank, never really registering anymore. His eyes were rounded with innocence, yet lacked the spark of life that would fit smugly within.

Or perhaps it was because Dowoon was well-acquainted with his predicament, and it had rendered him hyperaware of details he never wanted to care about. Human psychology was staggering. 

“Do you?” Wonpil cut his train of thoughts. Dowoon realised he’d been staring. He righted his gaze from Wonpil’s lips back to his eyes. 

“Do I what?”

Wonpil gently smiled, it was a sight reasonably out of place. “Do you play drums?”

“I do.”

At that, Dowoon dully watched as Wonpil’s expressive facial features markedly brightened up. He looked like a different person, like the other side of a coin.

“If you’re interested, you can come play in the music room some time. The teacher lets me practice on my own on afternoons.”

As a matter of fact, Dowoon’s didn’t have it in himself to deny his interest. It was what he’d always longed for, and felt stupid for not having considered the idea before. 

“I’ll think about it,” he gave his honest answer. Wonpil’s smile widened just a fraction, but that small change was significant to the contribution of his whole complexion. 

“I’m Wonpil,” he said. Dowoon resisted the urge to return a blunt _ I know, how could anyone not? _

Before he could respond, the alarm he’d set on his phone went off. When he checked what purpose he’d even given to this particular alarm, he was briskly reminded that he had an early shift today. 

“I have to go,” he announced as he got up, sighing. “See you Wonpil.” He left the table and walked towards the exit. 

Feeling impulsive, Dowoon glanced over his shoulder at Wonpil. He was already standing, dusting his bag with the near-constant tired look back on his face, but something else caught his attention. Discernible bruises were etched into his knees, hardly concealed by his shorts. The colours were diverse with a green here, a purple there and some tinge of yellow, but one thing was for sure; they were huge.

Dowoon frowned, shook his head to gaze ahead of himself, and shoved the missing earphone back in his ear. 

—

It was past eleven at night when Dowoon reached his house. Today’s work was somewhat uneventful, much so that he’d been let out before his due time. 

Standing in front of his front door, Dowoon patted his back pockets for his keys, feeling momentarily pleased to sense the obtruding stash of money that he’d earned. Finally unlocking the door after a while of fumbling around, he was unprepared to find it already open. 

That lead him to expect his dad settled on their living room couch, watching TV. Upon closer inspection, it rather appeared like he was absently staring ahead of himself. Dowoon didn’t go out of his way to silently close the door, aspiring to catch his dad’s attention. 

At the clicking sound, his dad whipped around and anchored his stare on Dowoon. His eyes were haggard and bore the quality of someone’s who was tired of existing.

“Where were you?” his anger was thinly veiled as he spoke. “It’s nearing midnight. We thought you’d never come back!” his dad gripped the couch, eyes wide and quaking with disbelief. When Dowoon didn’t answer, he leapt to his feet and rounded the couch. “Do you know what you do to your mother?”

“No,” Dowoon said.

“She’s worried sick! She cried herself to sleep, again!” his hands at his sides were animate, like words couldn’t even begin to give credence to his exasperation. Dowoon shifted on his spot, eyeing the stairs. “Don’t think we’ve never noticed before, this elusive behavior you’ve had. Why are you so aloof towards everything!”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, unaware that he’d just illustrated his dad’s point. He stepped out of his shoes and left them there. “Goodnight Pa.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” his dad’s voice was soaring to a rise. Dowoon stopped at the base of their staircase to turn and give his dad a look of indifference. “I swear Dowoon, if you were out practicing with your dumb band again, there will be consequences. And this time, I’ll be sure you learn from them.”

“I wasn’t,” he answered truthfully.

“Then where were you??”

Dowoon weakly smiled, “I was studying at Sungjin hyung’s house.”

His dad seemed to briefly consider the possibility. Sungjin was a close friend of their family, intellectually ahead of everyone else. Surely, he was the perfect influence in his parents’ eyes. 

“But, all this time?? For almost a year? And coming home at midnight?”

“I’m having a hard time at school for the moment, is all. I’ll do better,” he vaguely explained, keeping his lips under the pretense of a tender smile. His dad evidently didn’t have half the mind to parse Dowoon’s effete scheme, and rubbed a hand over his forehead that had crinkled with age. 

“Just,” he sighed, closing his eyes in empty surrender. “Just don’t let me catch you doing music again.” 

Dowoon nodded compliantly and trudged his way up the stairs. A few steps in, his dad spoke up again, “the business faculty sent me an email. They’ll need some kind of portfolio. Ask your tutor about that tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” he responded, slowly losing his make-believe smile the farther he climbed the stairs. “Goodnight,” he said, letting his words sink into the dark, gaping vacuum in the hallway. 

—

Dowoon’s eyes felt sore from exertion. He pressed the base of his hands into his eye sockets and prayed it would help chase the ache away. 

He hadn’t gotten enough quality sleep these past few days, and the looming exhaustion was rapidly catching up to him. Despite the pain, he willed himself to glare at the equations scrawled all over the blackboard.

Studying never came naturally to him. Perhaps he really should consider Sungjin’s help before his learning disabilities came between him and graduation. 

With that thought in mind, he didn’t realise that he was directing the glare not at the blackboard, but at a girl in the front row already sizing him up lovingly. She batted her lashes. He squeezed his eyes shut as he endured another throb at his temples. 

The bell rang and Dowoon didn’t wait for their teacher to properly dismiss the class to take his leave. He stopped at a fountain and pulled out medicine from his bag. Swallowing the pills, he sighed in satisfaction and leaned a hand against the wall. His head weightlessly hung between his shoulders. 

When he felt like the spreading headache was a little more bearable, he splashed water on his face and wiped it dry with his sleeve. Dowoon swiveled around, starting towards his friends’ classroom. 

The girl from earlier was waiting for his recognition at the end of the hallway of the second floor. They were sequestered, the area was vacant, he had nowhere else to go. He felt mildly bad for already summoning the same, reworded phrase of rejection each time a girl tried to ask him out, but it was inescapable.

“Dowoon?” the girl said when he was within hearing range. “Hey, I was wondering if you had time for a cup of coffee one of these days?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, barely stopping in his tracks. “I don’t have much time to spare.”

“Oh,” her smile fell, “that’s okay.”

“See you.” He was about to add the girl’s name before he remembered that he didn’t even know it. Without dwelling on it any longer, he sauntered down the stairs and closed in on the classroom his friends were in. 

The door was slightly ajar when he got there. A visceral urge stopped him from immediately entering. Instead, he depressed against the wall and closed his eyes, bringing a hand to cover his forehead. It wasn’t warm, and somehow, he wished it was. 

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor snapped Dowoon out of his stupor. Sluggish, he pressed the modicum of his energy into service and peered through the gap left by the oak door. 

He didn’t have complete vision over the classroom, but from what he could observe, Wonpil was wiping the blackboard with a wrung-out piece of cloth. His eyes were diligently keyed on the circular motion of his hand. It was without a doubt his best attempt at ignoring the two students towering over him, one leaning against the board with a hand on his hip, the other holding a bottle of coke. 

Brown hair, robust frame and a disproportionately slim waist, one of them was unmistakably revealed to be their year’s president. Dowoon shook his head. Even the person who was supposed to represent them all possessed little to no morals. 

The president’s ever so loyal henchman firmly nudged Wonpil in his ribs. Being smaller to a significant extent, Wonpil slightly stumbled sidewards. Heat roused to his cheeks, and not one for abstention, he nudged back. The guy couldn't quite keep his balance and spilled some of his coke. Dowoon fought the itch to facepalm. 

“Oh, you feeble little lamb,” said the henchman. He supplied his declaration with a belligerent cackle before pouring the entire content of his can onto Wonpil’s head. Wonpil’s shoulders jerked and reached his ears, he promptly dropped the cloth which he had been gripping. The soda dripped from his hair to the floor and on his shoes, some of it slid down his uniform shirt. His hands were helplessly suspended in the air, shoulders stiff, head lowered. 

Laughter erupted in the classroom, Dowoon’s jaw felt unhinged.

Wonpil pushed past the president and scrambled over to the door, catching himself from a short-lived slip on his wet shoes. Dowoon lurched backwards as the door slid open with a resounding bang, and before he knew it, a wet forehead gently collided against his chin. He floundered for a few seconds, and as he righted himself, he was met with Wonpil’s heavy gaze.

He was curled in on himself, hair sticking to his forehead and neck sodded with coke. They locked eyes for a heartbeat, but the moment diffused as Wonpil’s face broke into the smallest and fakest of smiles.

“Hi Dowoon,” his voice came out as barely above a whisper. Dowoon wasn’t given a chance to answer as Wonpil was already running to the restroom. He couldn’t help but notice Wonpil wiping his face as he went, but there was no soda on his face. 

He wordlessly stood there, staring in the direction where Wonpil had dashed to.

The remaining students spilled out of the room and fanned out into different paths. Some were hi-fiving each other, some hid their giggles behind their hands, others were more blatant about expressing their thrill. Dowoon’s own friends emerged, all riding on high spirits at the scene that had just unfolded.

“Yo, did you see that?” Sungsoo asked, roughly able to rein in his laughter.

“It was hilarious,” Taeyung concurred with a whoop, Hyorin nodded along with enthusiasm. “Did you guys see the look on his face?”

Dowoon remained unresponsive, powerless in front of the image of Wonpil’s humiliated expression. At that precise moment, he understood that it wasn’t really about the video anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished planning the entire outline for this story, yeehaw
> 
> now it's only a matter of motivation :')
> 
> hope you liked this chapter, because there are about 8 more to come!


	3. (3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonpil, just one thought among many others in Dowoon's head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm caught in the midst of midterms, and before i start working seriously, here's a little something
> 
> it's short and i'm not entirely satisfied with it, so i'm sorry :(

The window of their classroom revealed the sight of a vast meadow touching the limits of their school, but the view was nothing Dowoon would describe as compelling. 

The natural green colour of grass had long deserted the bedding, it now looked dry and lifeless. If Dowoon lost the part that made up for nearly 100% of himself, he would sag into a dry, miserable slump as well. He wondered if that was already the case.

However, the grass was glistening with moisture. The residue from the earlier rain still dripped from tree leaves. The exterior had all the discernible appeal of cold weather, and all Dowoon could do was sigh. 

His thoughts derailed to something more positive. Someday, that rainwater would bring the grass back to a blossom. Dowoon surreptitiously tilted his head in a silent display of contentment from where it was pinned on an upturned palm. 

Manicured fingers snapped in front of his face. He blinked, and made a face. Returning back to reality, chatters among his peers grew clearer. 

"You're worlds away from here right now," said Hyorin. She was perched on his table, one leg swung over her knee. 

“Why does it matter to you?” his chin bounced on his palm as he asked, but his gaze didn’t move. 

“God, you’re insufferable.” Although Dowoon didn’t see her face, her eye roll was as blatant as her catatonic air of superiority. 

Hyorin was meticulously studying her nails with a focused face. Though done in silence, she wasn't any less invisible to Dowoon. 

He didn't quite enjoy being in Hyorin’s company for a variety of reasons, one of them being the unbridgeable gap between their psyche. They stood on opposing ends of the spectrum, and while that was acceptable for some, Dowoon just didn't have it in himself to reconcile to some parts of her. She seemed to be consciously dismissive of the monsoon of disinterest he kept manifesting. 

As if to confirm that, Hyorin dropped her hand in her lap and turned to Dowoon with a question that never ceased to make its headstrong presence known. "Why don't you have a girlfriend?"

Dowoon held in the sigh that was about to escape him and let his gaze linger on the straw-quality grass swaying in the breeze beyond the window. Hyorin reminded him of her crushing omnipresence with a light tap to the face. Dowoon leaned away.

"Do I really have to answer that?"

"Yes," she replied with haste. 

"It's not like you don't already know why." They've discussed it more times than Dowoon had fingers on his two hands, but Hyorin either possesed a strange fixation on his answer or her memory was critically impaired. 

"Then tell me something that I don't know for a change," she challenged, uncrossing her slender legs and leaning forth into Dowoon's personal space. He tore his eyes from the window and directed his unfaltering glare at her. 

"Because I just don't care," he sighed out, drawing back to let himself rest on the backrest of the chair. Like each time, Hyorin chewed on her lipstick-stained lips and looked at his face like what he said was a flagrant lie. 

To his surprise, she did not argue further. Instead, she shrugged, "what a shame. Handsome like you?" 

She hopped off the table and placed herself right on Dowoon's spread thighs. Her arms slithered over his shoulders, and she hooked her wrists behind his neck. 

There was objectively not enough space for the both of them, and there was a verge to how much mass a chair could bear. Hyorin, as unmoved as Dowoon was indifferent to her advances, didn't seem affected by that or the few pairs of eyes that flicked their way. She gauged for his reaction, and seeing none, a smirk crept to her lips. 

"And to say that _ this _," she unlaced her hands and traced one down his bicep, the other barely grazing his abdomen, "is going to waste. What a shame," she repeated. 

Dowoon caught both her adventurous hands and put them back where they were supposed to go. Knowing she'd never remove herself from where she'd stubbornly made it her property, all that was in Dowoon's might was to vacantly meet her gaze and weather through whatever kind of physical boundaries she'd decided to cross today. 

"Don't you have anywhere else to be?" he added more distance between them in favour of breathing room. He could already foresee the wearisome retorts she used interchangeably. 

"I'm already where I have to be," she said in her best effort at seduction. He snorted and looked away. It was vain, in all sense of the term. Dowoon caught some of his classmates averting their eyes from where they were watching them. 

Dowoon wasn't particularly privy to Hyorin’s brain mechanics, but he knew for one thing that the better part of her revolved around a singular motive, which he was sure would flourish into words very soon judging by their current disposition. 

"Look at me," she demanded, and Dowoon complied. Hyorin was a flood, and swimming against it would only drown him. 

"What do you need from me?" he asked gravely. She seemed to pick up his serious tone and gently palmed his neck with both hands. Nails scraped at his skin.

"When are you going to concede?" Her head was dipping in closer to his. 

Dowoon rolled his eyes and pulled away, the back of his head met the base of his neck. He could feel one of Hyorin's sharp rings sink into his skin. She pinched his chin and brought him back to eye-level. “Dowoon.”

"It's not gonna happen, Hyorin."

She looked utterly dissatisfied and squeezed his jaw. "Sleep with me." 

"Stop trying." He jerked out of her grip.

The door to the classroom opened and revealed Wonpil at its entrance, carrying cleaning materials and wearing a pair of split lips. All eyes drifted to him. His hair was still in a ubiquitous state of disorder, his arms seemed limp, he looked nothing short of exhausted. 

Dowoon's seat was perfectly adjacent to the door, so it was inevitable when Wonpil's broken gaze fell right on him. He pressed his dull lips together at their shameless display and moved away from the door, dragging mutters of apologies with him. 

Hyorin shook her head in conspicuous scorn. She clicked her tongue disapprovingly when she came to see that Dowoon's eyes hadn't yet left the gaping door. 

"Learn to live a little," she decided to say to tug Dowoon's attention back to her. She let a finger roam down his cheek, slowly dragging to his neck, then his chest, lingering on the buttons of his shirt. "Why don't you come home with me today?"

"I'd hate it if that happens." He didn't supply his dismissal with more remonstration than it was necessary. Even though words wouldn't even begin to shake Hyorin's cognitive capacities, there was a limit that lead to _ enough _. 

She frowned at him, and they both knew she'd lost. In true Hyorin fashion, she had to steal the last breath, "don't you think I don't know why you're still resisting me after all this time." 

She extricated herself from his lap and Dowoon didn't waste any time standing up to smooth a hand on his now wrinkled shorts. 

"Have it your way," he mumbled coldly. Hyorin didn't respond, vindictively turning away and exiting the classroom. He didn’t spare her one last glance.

Dowoon reached into his backpack, and when his fingers made contact with the specific object he wanted to extract, he pulled it out with his hand. He zipped his bag and swung it over his shoulder, making his way to the door.

Once at its opening, he was met with Wonpil in a face-to-face consultation. The boy was reclined against the wall, crossed eyes thoughtlessly watched the ceiling of the hallway. A worn green cloth laid prone on the ground by his feet alongside other cleaning products that Dowoon didn’t recognise.

"Wonpil," Dowoon spoke up. Wonpil took a few tardy seconds to set his eyes on him, seeming to be halfway aware of who had called his name. 

"Oh, Dowoon," he said unfeelingly. His lips were forced into the backhanded shape of a grin. Dowoon carefully inspected the wound at the corner of his smile that couldn't be mistaken for anything else other than what it was. 

Dowoon's hand emerged between them, holding half a tablet of painkillers. "I thought you might need this," he suggested. 

Wonpil's eyes shifted back and forth between Dowoon's hand and face. Though he seemed particularly slow and reluctant today, Dowoon had patience. The pills ended up in Wonpil's feeble grasp, his eyes transfixed on them as though they were a novelty of the century. 

"Thank you," he whispered, Dowoon hardly caught it. A more organic smile bloomed on his face, and Dowoon thought he was happy with that.

He began to walk. "Betadine helps too," he said as farewell, and was already way past Wonpil to witness any of his expressive responses. 

In another world, perhaps his priority should be the cram school for which his parents invested a part of their fortune. Dowoon thought nothing of it. After all, one could only do so much trying to fill a bottomless ditch to the brim. 

Instead, he flittered by the school’s pathway that lead to the bus stop. On his way, Sungjin waved at him from where he sat at his usual study table with his cult-like study group. Jinyoung and Youngjae reflected their stare at him. Dowoon waved back. 

Once his bus arrived, he collapsed into an empty seat and closed his eyes. He knew that his lack of sleep was sinking its claws into his sanity, gradual but not any less acute. Thoughts swarmed his head, he couldn’t file them into an organized assortment. 

He thought of Hyorin and her egomaniac tendencies. Her bad-mannered ministrations and how hellbent she was to get in Dowoon’s pants.

He thought of Taeyung’s stupid jokes, his red face when he laughed too hard. 

He thought of Wonpil’s constant crestfallen face that made a home above his neck. He thought of the sheer trauma that fleeted on his features when coke was poured over him. How every single expression of his that Dowoon had catalogued seemed to be ones that often reminded of strained happiness.

He thought of Sungjin and his cult, which made him think of the look his dad often gave him in recent times. He tried to ignore the fact that it was irrigated with disappointment.

The bus stumbled to a halt. He blinked his way into reality. It wasn’t his stop, so he closed his eyes again. Sleep never reached him. 

Perhaps appraising Sungjin’s existence today had only served to punish him. He recalled his argument with his dad, and the rushed white lie that had eluded him.

He ached to rid himself of every single thought related to his dad. Inheriting a big company might be an incredible deal for some, but it amounted to nothing in Dowoon’s book. It simply wasn’t part of his dreams. 

He was in his best element when doing music, and he wished to pursue it. No amount of reprimands would persuade him otherwise. 

But his drum set had long been sold, and his mom had drastically cut his pocket money upon discovering his occasional escapade with his former band. 

He had transferred to a new school twice in a year. His grades began to plummet, becoming one with the dirt he walked on. If he dropped out of this one, they would have to move again. Their town was already short on public high schools as it was.

And Dowoon thought of Wonpil’s invitation. Without a doubt, he’d choose the thing for which his heart throbbed. But he still loved his parents despite everything. 

The vehicle violently shook, and he fluttered out of his rapture. It was a familiar stop, yet Dowoon wasn’t acquainted with it. Magnolia district.

Promptly, he got up from his seat and cleared his mind before descending the bus. 

The frontmost area of Magnolia looked understandably innocent. There was a McDonald’s and a few perky cafes in the nooks of the street. Dowoon even spotted a clothing shop.

Once he passed the first strip club, not yet open for service in broad daylight, more kept appearing like a child overcoming its shyness. He crept through little paths, finding copious amounts of bars that differed little in terms of service. 

Nowadays, it was too easy to fool people. With just a pleasant front to look at, who cared what lurked beneath the surface? 

The cute little corky side of Magnolia district set the task to stave off cops, though everyone pretty much knew what entailed in the depths of the neighbourhood. The better part of it was plagued with illegal business. 

Dowoon shook his head and suppressed thoughts about Wonpil. By doing that, it backfired and he found himself in not-so-mundane need of answers. What was someone like Wonpil, who had the face of grandma’s favourite boy, doing in a place like this? 

Walking through the area multiple times effectively proved to be counterproductive. Dowoon checked the map on his cellphone and followed the way back to the initial bus stop. It was almost time for his shift.

The bench here was much more used and old. When Dowoon sat, it rocked like its legs were about to buckle under his weight. Oddly, he could relate to it. 

He sighed, holding a palm up on his knee. It turned fairly moist, and Dowoon cursed autumn that was carving its way through the months and marking the town with its foreboding arrival. 

Buses here took long, he noticed. Pasted on the wall next to his head was a lone poster of some volleyball competition, glaring back at him. He hated Magnolia district.

—

Weekends were busy, townspeople were impatiently waiting for October's festivals to take place, and Dowoon, crushed under the weight of their thrill, suffered during his endless hours of intense labor. He consoled himself with the reward that awaited the end of his monthly shifts. 

There was no such thing as _ rush hour _ on saturdays and sundays. Customers swarmed the store, left only under Dowoon's care, at every minute of the day.

"Have a nice day," he mumbled to his customer. It was protocol, otherwise he wouldn't have wasted his breath wishing something to someone whom he was sure to never see again. 

The customer hardly acknowledged his efforts before shuffling out of the store like his items magically scanned themselves. Sadly, it was par for the course. 

He saw customer after customer, and if one's crude manners didn't convene him, he had little choice but to ground his jaw and smile through the irritation. The same items were purchased, stocks were sparse, Dowoon had a difficult time replacing the products while managing the counter at once, and was overall in desperate need of a break. 

"Here's your change, have a nice day," he said, clearing his sore throat. He operated in a way that was demeaned to mechanical actions and wasn't aware that he'd dropped a coin on the counter. The customer facing him looked at him with arrogance and scurried out of the store, forgetting his coin. 

Dowoon had his stare hammered to the ground and waited for his next customer to hand in their things, and when nothing came, he rolled his eyes to appraise the problem. He deadpanned when Wonpil's schooled face was what greeted him. 

"Aren't you buying anything?" Dowoon said in a level tone, noticing Wonpil’s cold impasse and lack of items. If Wonpil ordinarily looked tired, today, it seemed to have exacerbated tenfold. He was swimming in a pale pink sweater, a great contrast to the tasteless uniform shirt that was always badly tucked in his shorts. 

"Did you do it?" Wonpil suddenly asked. His voice was guarded, quiet but punctuated. 

"Do what?" Dowoon frowned.

Wonpil rolled his eyes in the same manner that Dowoon did earlier. His hands surfaced to express an emotion he visibly couldn't put to words. It was like he was working very hard to piece his thoughts together. Dowoon could do nothing more than watch. 

"I—" he stuttered, wiping his face with his hands. Never had his face looked this contorted with exasperation. "Please come clean before I lose all my wits and end up in a mental hospital." 

"Come clean?" Dowoon repeated, eyeing beyond Wonpil's shoulder, displeased to see a line gathering. "About what?"

"You—!" Wonpil began exclaiming, catching himself quickly with a calming sigh and controlling the cadence of his voice. "You're the one who— you leaked the video didn't you?" 

"Huh?" Dowoon squinted.

"Don't act stupid," Wonpil uttered weakly, his general conduct torn between abandonment and anger. 

"What are you talking about?" Dowoon began to grow angry himself, placing his palms on the counter and leaning forth in a challenging stance. Wonpil did not betray even the bat of an eye. "I have nothing to do with this bullshit." 

Someone in the far back yelled something about hurrying up, but it fell upon deaf ears. Wonpil's eyes creased with incredulity. 

"Oh yeah? Then how do you explain this?" his voice carried out through the entire store. He slammed his phone near Dowoon's hands like it held no monetary value at all. A Facebook page that was now blank was already opened.

Dowoon watched it carefully. In the friends list of the anonymous page, primary source of Wonpil's tragedy, Dowoon saw his own profile picture. His stomach twisted and he glared back at the offending screen. 

"I didn't do this," he said, keeping his gaze locked on something he never saw happening. Wonpil was right, how could he explain this?

"So? Tell me now that you have nothing to do with this bullshit," it was said in strained breathing, it revealed his full-scale resentment. 

Dowoon was in a total loss of words. "It wasn't me."

"It wasn't you?" Wonpil echoed. Dowoon wished he did it only because he'd misheard. Wonpil interpreted Dowoon's silence as an act of guilt. "Take it down."

"I said it wasn't me," he ground out.

"Take it down, please." Wonpil's brows pinched not into a frown, but into something indescribably sad. Moans and complaints sounded from behind his narrow shoulders, but they both ignored it.

"Did you hear me? I didn't do it, I have no idea how this happened." Dowoon let his hand fall on the register machine with a resounding clang and startled Wonpil. 

Crossed eyes observed him with a mixture of feelings within them, like his body was unsure whether to feel tired or dejected or distraught or angry, or perhaps everything at once. Dowoon's stomach curled in on itself at the sight. 

Wonpil’s eyes turned glassy but Dowoon couldn't confidently affirm this as he lowered them to the ground. 

"Jackass," Wonpil muttered and pushed past the customers that had assembled around to get a load of their bickering. The door chimed bitterly at his exit. The normally happy tingle sounded broken. 

"Fuck," Dowoon sighed out, raking his hand through his hair a few times. He did not have enough energy to think, let alone do anything to alter the circumstances, even though he wanted to. 

The world came to a stop for a few seconds, everything was radically immobile, nearly gone. He stared ahead of himself, unseeing, but deeply pensive. His finger twitched. Customers slowly began drifting into a proper line again. An item was gently posed before Dowoon's nose, he absently grabbed it without looking at it, instead spying out the glass doors of the store.

Outside, Wonpil was reduced to a small figure, yet clearly discernible. His back was presented to him, his knees trembled, hands veiled the entirety of his face. Most importantly, he was not alone, but in the company of a black-haired guy who made him look like a tiny, tiny child. 

The guy was rubbing a hand down Wonpil's back, speaking soundless words into his temple, the worldly therapy guidelines anyone in distress needed. Wonpil was indeed in a lot of distress. 

"Young man?" the customer he was currently supposed to take care of tried. Dowoon turned to him, momentarily seeing the phantom of Wonpil's marred face in front of him. He blinked, and then it was gone, replaced by the worried expression of a middle-aged man. "Are you okay?" 

"Yes," Dowoon smiled politely, resuming his work.

The rest of the day was spent cautiously threading on the thin line of his temper. A slight stumble and all self-control might leave him. Fortunately, he’d narrowly avoided it by busying himself. He rushed through work and rather than taking a break in due time, Dowoon closed the store without informing his manager and went straight home. 

He collapsed in his bed, foregoing a shower, and willed himself to go to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think remember us might decisively be my favourite album, so cool definitely became my favourite song tho
> 
> anyways, hope you enjoyed? :( 
> 
> the next chapters won't be as uneventful! (when my sanity returns after midterms)


	4. (4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a troublesome day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought my mind woud clear after midterms but as you can guess, it didn't
> 
> hope i was able to meet your expectations with this chapter, though i have no idea what i'm doing
> 
> enjoy? :')

His ceiling was a worn white, there was a shapeless water stain from when rain had seeped into their roof a few years back, when Dowoon used to sit in his room and play cards with his dad. 

His bedsheets were terribly ruffled, his blanket had fallen to the ground in his sleep, sweat clung to his forehead despite the cold weather. He wished they had a ceiling fan so he could at least stare at something animate when he'd wake up hours before the time he'd set for his morning alarms. 

He swallowed down the tattered debris of sleep and tapped around for his phone. He had forgotten, or perhaps never remembered, how long he'd been awake for, lying flat on top of astray homework. His cell laid uncharged next to his pillow, as good as dead. It still managed to light up a _ 5:24 am _. 

He dragged himself out of bed, tripped his way into his bathroom to wash his teeth and slip into his uniform. He watched himself in the mirror, thoughtlessly tracing the area under his eye with a finger. 

With a sigh, he trudged down the stairs into the dim living room. Beyond the window, there was no hint of chirping birds or a peeking sun. 

In the kitchen, the fridge buzzed quietly as Dowoon unsealed it to grab food. The chair in which he sat creaked in the silence, the sound seemed loud and disturbed the stillness like ripples on a sheet of water. 

Dowoon genuinely enjoyed breakfast. He used to wake up with the innate giddiness that crawled under his skin with the thought of delicious food. Now, time was slow and grinding and his mom was practically bed-bound, too lazy to cook. It was an objective fact that Dowoon and his dad couldn't go anywhere near the stove without damaging something. There was no pleasure in eating anymore, as the experience was lost with significant household changes. 

He stayed there even when his plate was empty, playing on his phone until it was drained of its battery. He placed it face-down on the table, peering out the kitchen window. The first pale stripes of morning were emerging. 

Faint footsteps echoed from the staircase. When they reached the kitchen, Dowoon pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet, swinging his backpack over his shoulder.

"Dowoon," his mom said, lingering under the doorframe. She was wrapped in a lavender bathroom and could honestly look worse for wear. His dad, tucked in a crisp white shirt wrapped with a tie at the neck, stood behind her. His face hardened at the sight of his son. "Aren't you going to eat something before going to school?"

He clutched the strap of his bag, studying his mom's wrinkled smile. It was one of those rare days where she didn't seem like she was capable of ripping his head off in the whim of her rage. 

"Sure,” he shrugged.

Immediately as he sat back down, he began to regret his decision. His dad sank down on the seat across from him and split open a newspaper. His mom rummaged through the fridge for longer than he was used to, her hands having surrendered the habit of the most mundane of efforts. 

"Dowoon," she began with a tone that suggested worry. She closed the fridge and put a bowl of cold ham in front of him, not microwaving it. "Dowoon," she shook his shoulder.

"Hm?" 

"The teacher reported yet another absence on your tutor lesson yesterday. What's this about?" she said, occupying herself with washing a clean spoon in the sink. Dowoon opted against answering, bouncing his knee and waiting for it to be over.

"Woon, your mother's talking to you."

"I know, I heard her." 

His dad dropped the newspaper on the table which shuddered at the collision and fixed him with a glare. "_ Her _is your mother, not your friend."

He picked at the skin around his nails with his thumb, holding eye-contact with his dad. "Yeah ok."

It seemed that this morning, his parents tried very hard to control their temper. His dad merely resumed where he left off in his lecture. "So you have some explaining to do," he continued calmly. 

"Nothing that you don't know."

"For the last time Yoon Dowoon," his dad's voice became louder, distinct, cutting through the silence. "Music is not something worth pursuing. It won't provide you any type of stable career or income. It's either hit or miss, do you understand me?"

"We're investing a lot for this to work out. You're the only one in the family who can take up the business, it's really important that you do, you know that." His mom sounded strange and unlike anything that was herself when she wasn't about to explode in anger. 

But Dowoon was fed up. "I don't care about leading a business."

He got up for the second time and both his parents turned to him, their eyes following him as he left the kitchen. He opened the front door, but his mom had trailed behind him and was standing by the couch.

"Have you ever thought that we did? We care, we _ care _, and we can't let our expenses go to waste like that, you know it so well yet you—"

"Then maybe invest that money into something that will make me happy," he said, slamming the door on his way out. 

The sun was already spilling shadows across the pavement as he walked to the bus stop, letting his eyes examine the shape of his own shadow. 

He exhaled heavily, pressing his forehead into the glass pane framing the bench at the bus stop. He bumped it a few times and squeezed his eyes shut. 

What was the remedy for a headache that didn't stem from organic causes? He ached to know. 

  


—

  


Dowoon was only five minutes late for his post-lunch class, but his appalling punctuality was intentional. 

In this time of the day, students had this unfathomable obsession of loitering around the hallway like lunch had cut their thirst for knowledge, not that there was much to begin with. Although afternoon classes were ones he usually skipped, he showed up enough times to know how taxing it was to get through this particular corridor. 

Today, however, it didn’t seem to matter how late Dowoon was. He pushed his way through bunches of people to his class, tightening his grip around his drink. He’d paid for it with the money he made, so it would be a pity if he were to drop it on some poor unassuming student’s bag.

Ahead of him, a more prominent crowd was gathering. Even further ahead, someone was rapidly slicing a path through the cluster of students and separating it in two. 

It took Dowoon less than a second to recognise Wonpil, briskly walking to a set destination. He had his books and papers embraced against his chest. Behind him, the year president and this time two of his henchmen chased after his steps. 

“What happened to him?”

”Beats me. He seems pissed.”

“He always seems to be these days.”

“Can’t he lighten up a bit? That’s just depressing.”

“Is it just me or is his hair different?”

Curiosity swelled within him. In an effort to get a better view, Dowoon craned his neck, but availed to very little.

Ever since Wonpil’s sullen visit at the convenience store, Dowoon hadn’t once spotted him around the school. He should’ve known that Wonpil would be good at keeping a low-profile, that much was a given, though it didn’t seem to be the case right now. 

Wonpil suddenly came to a stop and turned to his locker, giving the three other boys a chance to bracket him in a menacing semi-circle. The crowd enfolded itself around them as near as they dared, watchful gazes harping on some sort of climax. 

Dowoon strode forth, but the space kept on reducing the closer he tried to get. He was left with no choice but to stand behind some girl with high ponytails shadowing his sight. 

“So Wonpil,” Dowoon heard the head of their year speak. “Tell me about those bruised knees.”

Dowoon had to commend Wonpil’s ironclad apathy towards the entire situation. He was as still as a rock, his face as neutral as how Dowoon had come to learn it. He pertained to swapping his books like he was the only one on the surface of this earth. 

“Ay, Wonpil, are you not going to answer?” one of the nameless three roughly poked at Wonpil’s flimsy left shoulder. “Where did these come from, hm?” he gesticulated to the boy’s knees with a foot. Straw between his lips, Dowoon observed Wonpil subtly rubbing his legs together. 

“Answer, or all these people will see how your strong, unaffected front is a huge, sad lie.” Wonpil remained silent, seeming to take a long time to simply transfer books from his locker to his arms. The neon green stripe on his tote bag was still unwashed. 

“You must've gotten _ these _while praying to god last night, right?"

“Huh,” the president's huff was derisive, as he shifted in his spot where he was leaning against the row of lockers. "Silly Wonpil. You kneel to _pray_, not to suck dicks." 

A slammed locker door echoed in the hallway, the girl in front of him jumped and let out a breathy gasp. Dowoon released the straw from his teeth and strapped his eyes on Wonpil’s expressionless features. He was staring at his hands which still clung to the metal lock. 

“Take it back,” he murmured. 

“What now?” the president cocked his head sideways, visibly insulted by the command. 

“Take it back,” Wonpil punctuated his words, unwilling to admit defeat. The corridor fell in an imminent silence.

Dowoon’s eyes dropped to his drink; it was a fluorescent pink and hardly tasted like something that should be consumed by the living. The smoothie still bubbled at the rim of his paper cup, as he hadn’t drank much from it. 

He decided to shoulder his way to the front, untroubled by how his chest was bumping into the backs of those that stood between him and Wonpil.

“Or what,” the president snorted a few seconds before Dowoon appeared. “Or you’re gonna get down on those knees and give me a blowjob?”

“Such a slander of title,” Dowoon’s grave voice cleaved through the leaden stillness, capturing the four boys’ attention. Wonpil whipped his head around and looked at him with something that could’ve been either intrinsic anger or alarm.

“What do you want?” the guy with dog-like loyalty to the president snapped. 

Dowoon slurped some more from his pink drink, keeping a straight face. In one swift motion, he poured it over the president’s head, shaking the cup for good measure. The president brusquely jerked away and hissed at the freezing contact. Pink liquid bled into the white of the guy’s uniform, ice spilled to the ground. He was left to squeeze his eyes shut against the coolness, hands idly groping the air as though to catch the drip drops of the drink. Dowoon threw the cup to the ground and slipped his hands in his pockets. 

If the corridor was silent before, a huge, obtrusive question mark now loomed over their heads. And if Dowoon cared to look around himself, he would notice all the dropped jaws and hand-over-mouth response within the crowd. 

He searched Wonpil’s unreadable face instead, his lips parted, wide eyes roving over Dowoon. In the heart of the swelling momentum, Dowoon couldn't help but notice that some wisps of Wonpil’s hair had lost its natural colour, now tinted a striking beige. 

The only preeminent sound was the liquid that continuously dripped from the wet, pointy tips of the president’s hair. 

The books that Wonpil was carrying slid from his slackened clutch and collapsed to the ground. He quickly left the premise in a sprint towards the direction from where he came.

In the stillness, Dowoon rolled his eyes to a seal and clenched his pocketed hands into fists, quietly clicking his tongue. He didn’t want to see what the wind was blowing in his direction. 

“You’re fucking screwed,” the president seethed under his breath.

  


—

  


For the second time that day, Dowoon sized himself up in the mirror of the school’s restroom. It was past four in the afternoon, so the typical sharp scent of javel was mixed with the metallic quality of blood that stung his nose. It had dried up and was smeared above his lip, but water and soap was not reliable enough to get rid of the redness that the blood left behind. He counted himself lucky that the steady punch didn’t fracture his nose bridge.

Dowoon wasn’t quite sure when he had started to look this way, decrepit and seeming as though he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months. Dwelling on Wonpil’s messy bedhead made of him a raging hypocrite. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d picked up a comb. 

An antiseptic cream weighed in his hand, the other gently dabbing its contents under his swollen eye. He kept himself from wincing, because it only served to severe the pain rather than dim it. 

He made sure he didn’t leave any other bruise spot on his face unaccounted for, and tossed the tube in the bin. He sighed, tearing his eyes from his brief self-examination. 

The books that had earlier fallen from Wonpil’s embrace were perched on the counter, edges wet from the sporadic drops of water surrounding the sink. 

He had taken possession of them after having his ass handed over to the president, and planned to give them back to Wonpil when the opportunity presented itself. After all, who else would see to this if it wasn’t Dowoon?

He scooped them up and deftly balanced them on one arm before pushing past the door of the restrooms. 

He couldn’t understand his course of actions, why he was currently climbing the stairs that lead to the music room where he knew he’d find Wonpil without a single doubt, let alone putting his blood-circulation at risk by hoarding all these books for him.

The throbbing under his eye was set out as a brisk reminder that Wonpil really had deserted him in the hallway and that he wasn’t still rapt in some over-realistic dream. Yet here he was, gracing him with another favour. 

Nonetheless, his feet had him standing in front of the music room, consulting the door in a silent will to withstand whatever social nuances of antipathy Wonpil decided to exhibit today. 

Piano notes wrung into a sort of unrevised melody tasseled out from behind the door, and Dowoon was caught in a short-lived trance before curtly shaking his head.

Not lingering on his thoughts any further, Dowoon slid the door open and was momentarily blinded by the sunlight that flooded his figure. He stabbed a finger in his unharmed eye to block out the hearty brightness, and Wonpil’s head snapped up to inspect the sudden intrusion. 

His face was hard when his eyes met halfway with Dowoon’s, but the forced air of indifference gave away his act of pretending like Dowoon’s face didn’t look like some sordid work of art. Perhaps Wonpil esteemed that he deserved every bit of it.

“What do you want?” he cut through whatever Dowoon thought of saying first.

“Chill,” he shrugged, “just taking up the invitation from the other day.” As a gesture of emphasis, Dowoon conspicuously abandoned the stack of books on a table, and made space for himself to sit.

Wonpil seemed to be contemplating his words for a few seconds, gaze fixated on his books, and then lowered his head to observe the piano keys spread in front of him. “You don’t need to anymore,” he mumbled.

“I might as well,” Dowoon retorted.

“Don’t waste your time.” It was said more firmly. 

The room turned quiet as soon as Wonpil answered. He was making himself as small as possible, as though cowering behind his keyboard would help him disappear from sight. Dowoon languidly swung his legs, scratched his cheek and sighed. 

“It really wasn’t me,” the words tasted sour on his tongue. Wonpil jolted upright and his crossed eyes watched Dowoon intently, though there was nothing more than silky confusion within them. 

“What?” 

“I didn’t do it, ok?” he confessed, bringing his arms to place them over his knees. “It’s probably a mistake.”

Wonpil blankly stared at him, and whatever was on his mind seemed to make him cripple with guilt. "I… don't have any reason to believe you."

"I don't know you, why would I care about ruining your life?" he countered.

"You don't need to know me for that."

"You’re fucking stubborn." Dowoon's grimace openly expressed his irritation. Wonpil simply lifted his shoulders into a shrug and flipped through his music sheets. "Where would I even get the footage from? We never met before."

For the first time since Dowoon put a foot in this room, Wonpil showed a sign of consideration. He knew with conviction that his words struck a chord deep within him. 

Wonpil paused in his actions and sat motionless, sight casted down upon his fingers that gently combed through the keys. Dowoon watched him weightlessly press down on them, barely producing any sound. The corner of Wonpil's lips were slightly tugged towards his chin, in profound concentration or shy demonstration of misery, Dowoon had yet to find out. 

He'd set quite a few expectations, but Wonpi unresponsively stroking his keyboard certainly wasn't one of them. 

Reflecting the afternoon's sunlight, the bleached strands of Wonpil's hair stood out like a sore thumb. They were irregular, essentially prevailing on the left side of his head. Some were layered with his still untouched hair, some were displayed at the very front. Overall, Dowoon could tell it wasn't something he voluntarily did to himself. Wonpil most likely had more discretion than the impression he gave. 

"Thank you," Wonpil said when Dowoon was beginning to think he could lounge here all day in complete silence with the occasional soft note of piano. Their eyes met and Dowoon rose a brow. Wonpil wiped his hands on his shorts. "Thanks for helping me today. You don't deserve that crap."

Dowoon pursed his lips and nodded. He hopped down the table and flanked around the room to get behind the drum set. He could feel Wonpil's eyes memorising his every move. 

"What about your hair?"

"Oh, this," Wonpil self-consciously fondled his hair. "I fell asleep in class. Someone decided that day was a good day to bring hair bleach, and this is the result I guess."

Grabbing the pair of drumsticks that innocuously laid by the foot of the stool, Dowoon snorted. "That's stupid." 

"Yeah, it sorta is." There was an ominous pinch of disappointment in his tone. When Dowoon peered over at him, Wonpil was already looking back. He gesticulated to the general artwork on Dowoon's face with palpable unsurety. "Are you… are you okay?"

Dowoon held his shrug against his ears for a few seconds and released his shoulders. "Could be better." 

"I'm sorry this happened."

"It's fine," he answered genuinely, throwing a half-hearted smile at Wonpil. 

The apology sat all wrong to him, Wonpil was undoubtedly not in the most fit state to be asking for forgiveness. Looking back, whether or not Wonpil had left him, it wouldn't have dictated much change in the outcome. They would've both ended up going home wearing injuries like a second skin. 

"How's your lip?" Dowoon asked, bouncing his wrist to hit the snare with as much grace as his rusty arm allowed. In his peripheral vision, Wonpil's hand unconsciously darted to press at the corner of his mouth. 

"All healed. Thanks for…" his voice wilted midway. Dowoon curiously skipped his gaze to Wonpil. "Thanks for a lot of things I guess. It's, I, not that you're not trustworthy, but nothing seems to be these times. So… I hope you understand that it's not believable someone's not trying to fool me." 

As they locked eyes, Dowoon noticed that the dull sunlight of an approaching evening poured in at a seamless angle around Wonpil, sinking in the gaps of his hair and dissolving at the edges of his neck, assembling a halo. He could've made for a sedate painting confined in expensive glass, hung in a museum. At the scrutiny, Wonpil’s hazy, dreamlike figure cracked a timid smile, broken and damp with lingering sadness, but it wasn't a look that frequently flared on his face. 

Dowoon pretended that the flutter in his chest never happened and averted his sight to his drumsticks, at a standstill. "Sure."

  


—

  


"Why Magnolia district?" Dowoon would ask, his voice jostled by the startling movements of the bus.

Wonpil's mouth would try to form words that hesitated at the rim of his pink lips. "I hate your bluntness." 

Dowoon would observe his chiseled jaw that chased down to the longest slope of neck he'd ever seen in his vacuous eighteen years of existence. Crossed-eyes flickered to his. Dowoon's saint-like patience would not betray him as he waited for Wonpil to answer.

"So?" he would urge anyway.

"What if it's a secret?" 

"Nothing about Magnolia district is a secret."

Wonpil's right shoulder would come to a shrug, where he would turn his head away to fix the seat opposite of him with a listless glare. "_ You _ called me stubborn earlier."

"You are."

"For good reasons." 

Dowoon would snort, but both would understand that it was nothing of the condescending nature. 

"Sure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not gonna lie, days have been tough, and to everyone going through shit, please stay positive! just think that things will never stay the same way they are now. there's bound to be something good in your life, eventually, just look forward to that. usually, things within your control can hardly fix anything, so be nice to yourself, you have many more years to live with yourself :D
> 
> anyway, why am i saying this
> 
> i'd love to read a new dopil one of these days, my inspiration is dwindling fast


	5. (5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dowoon comes to a few realisations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sweet chaos, not fine, rescue me, 365247, but most especially not mine. i'm in love with this album. i am screeching lol
> 
> i am terribly sorry if my writing style is really inconsistent but i'll try to be more brief from now on because this story is closer to the beginning than it is to the end and i need to rush it a bit
> 
> enjoy?

Something was strange.

Their dining room was murky, with one of two lights functioning. The other barely survived on its teetering condition, and if Dowoon was too lazy to replace it, his parents had no chance to escape their constant exhaustion to bother.

Other than the clinking sounds of silverware against ceramic, the atmosphere was largely quiet. Occasionally, Dowoon would look up from his phone and shove food in his mouth, tossing up a quick glance at his parents across from him. They sat immediately underneath the only working light which carved long and disproportioned shadows under the planes on their faces. 

It had been a few days already that they have stopped acting as though some sort of violent metaphysical force possessed them, at the ready to commit murder. Dowoon knew how redundant the image he conceived of his parents was, but at least it stemmed from a variable truth. 

In fact, the things that had changed wasn’t integral to his parents or even himself, it was in their communication. On a scale of 1 to 10, they went from 2 to -10. Aside from _ pass the salt please, _they had yet to breathe in the general direction of the other. 

If they didn’t talk, they didn’t fight, so Dowoon was left to appreciate the token harmony even if it sacrificed something that he wouldn’t admit to missing. 

As he silently chewed his dinner, scanning the screen of his phone, he suddenly remembered the letter he stumbled upon as he came home from school today. 

Today’s foreboding element came in the basic shape of a dull white envelope that laid on this very table. It had a tear at the top, its contents missing, most likely discovered by his mom. According to the distinct markings, it arrived straight from the institute of his extracurricular classes, where he seldom showed up. Dowoon had scurried past it, casually sweeping the matter under the rug. 

So he should expect tonight to be the end of their short-lived peace. His dad, looking rather unfriendly, confirmed it with a heavy sigh. 

“Dowoon, we’ve decided.” His voice was loud and exaggerated in the curtain of silence. Dowoon searched his dad’s face, prepared to be in the receipt of his hovering wrath.

His mom’s hand whipped out a napkin and used it to wipe her mouth. She came to a rise, chair screeching against the floor, before rounding the table, still cleaning her lips, and ambling up the stairs with her napkin. 

Both Dowoon and his dad watched her leave, knowing it was what she had resolved to doing when an argument was about to transpire. 

His dad cleared his throat and gently placed his utensils against the rim of his plate. After a pause of him thoughtfully inspecting his lap, Dowoon locked his phone and let it audibly drop on the table.

“What,” he said tonelessly. 

“We’re arranging a marriage for you.” 

Dowoon's voice died in his throat, his jaw went completely slack. He hadn’t realised he’d been squinting until his eyes widened in shock. "Excuse me?"

"If you're so against taking up this business, your mom and I have decided that it's best to get you married." 

"You're threatening me," he murmured, pointedly glaring ahead of him at his dad.

His dad reclined in his seat and sighed, refusing to meet his glower. "It's only reasonable we do so, you're not serious about this at all." 

"I— what— how on earth can I be when my own parents are trying to force their shit on me? Why won't it go through you that I'd absolutely despise to be where you so desperately want me to be?" Dowoon floundered in disbelief. His dad had yet to turn an angry shade of red at his happy choice of words, and to say Dowoon was surprised would be a euphemism. In a calmer tone, he continued, "I don't want this, this shit."

"Dowoon," his dad ignored him, "this business might be worth more than your life, and our wish to—"

"Oh _ wow _."

"—continue the legacy is as important as it isrelevant. Nothing you say, think or hate will change that fact." 

"It's just some _ fucking _ textile company dad," Dowoon's voice carried out through the dead hollows of the house, catching himself unguarded. His parents were the ones who'd yell, not him, but he could hardly accept being talked down to as though he was lower than dirt. "Are you out of your mind? My whole future for something that exists everywhere?"

"No, it's—"

"I don't _ care _if it's under our name, it's, ridiculous," he spaced out his words to insist on his point.

The pathetic truth was stretched between them, it was something their entire household was religiously aware of. 

His parents' company, though providing the great fortune they currently lived on, was a simple mimicry of thousands of other identical companies in existence. Its importance was magnified in a way that was misrepresentating, and they were perfectly conscious of it too despite arguing otherwise. 

Nonetheless, his dad was known to be incredibly stubborn, and that was probably 90% of where Dowoon had acquired his most deplorable flaw. His dad spoke as though everything was unraveling in his own head, where he most likely imagined Dowoon to wordlessly bend under his will.

"Yes, we can still strengthen our business by creating an alliance with another. There's this young woman— she's a little older than you, maybe a little over 22, but it should be fine. Her dad owns a very stable company, this should—"

"Dad, _ stop _. It's not happening." Dowoon ground out. 

"You have a choice now, don't you?" he reflected, arching a brow.

"In what world are those options fair to me??" his voice cracked as he yelled, pounding a fist on the table. The glasses feebly shivered.

A muted thump was heard above their heads and Dowoon snapped his head to study the ceiling. The lights poured into his eyes, but he momentarily wondered if his mom was alright.

"_ You should be ashamed of calling yourself a Yoon! _" his mom's ragged, tired voice echoed through the walls. That weak thump must’ve been the hardest stomp his mother could manage.

He carded a hand through his hair and was irritated to find it stuck in the knots that he never took care of. Dowoon let himself look at his dad who fixedly sat in his place, face bereaved of emotions, flat eyes holding eye-contact. Dowoon figured that the blood coursing within his veins must be freezing cold.

"Fuck you, dad," he spat, uncaring of the animosity that weighed on his tongue. Never had the word _ dad _ tasted so bitter. With that thought in mind, Dowoon left the dining room in long strides and traced his mom's steps up the stairs, slamming the door to his room behind him. 

  
  


It was a while of him wallowing in his own exasperation, caught in the web of diverse emotions. The injustice was spelled-out in bold letters, it was suffocating him.

His room was so still that, even with his face flattened in the center of his pillow, the buzz of his phone was able to be heard. It was the only thing to hammer him back to reality.

He blindly picked it left-handed, only looking up once he gripped it sternly. Dowoon had to squint through the brightness of the screen, tenfold more vibrant in the stock-still darkness.

**Wonpil**

_ i’ll take you through magnolia tomorrow if you want _

Dowoon shifted to his side and read the words over and over again, deciding against an immediate answer. He found it easier to breathe once the statement had sunk into his conscience. Something about Wonpil managed to make his world seem that much more inconsequent. 

**Dowoon**

_ why the sudden change of mind _

**Wonpil**

_ not a change of mind if my mind hadn’t been set up until now _

**Dowoon**

_ whatever _

**Wonpil**

_ it’s nothing _

_ just thought of it since you wanted to know _

_ is it ok? _

_ i’m sorry, this is so sudden _

_ maybe i shouldn’t have _

_ dowoon? _

**Dowoon**

_ sure _

_ after my shift tomorrow _

_ see you at magnolia bus stop at 5 _

**Wonpil**

_ oh _

_ ok _

Locking the device, Dowoon closed his eyes, preparing himself for another sleepless night. Though his limbs felt heavy and the back of his eyeballs stung with the familiar yearn for sleep, his mind had a difficult time shutting down.

His phone vibrated against his palm that had already begun to sweat. The chilly weather pulsed at his open window, billowing his sheer curtains. He rubbed his socked feet together and swiped at his phone. 

**Wonpil**

_ [message unsent] _

_ [message unsent] _

_ thank you, dowoon _

Dowoon snorted quietly, pointedly ignoring the prickling sensation in the leftmost side of his chest. It bubbled in his throat and Dowoon foolishly chalked it up to hunger from not having finished his food.

He set his phone in its appropriate dent beside his pillow and threw an arm over his face. Hours felt like minutes, but Dowoon was sure he’d stayed in that sore position for quite some time. His back drenched in sweat and his numb arm could readily attest to that as he woke up several times from his fragmented slumber.

Profound sleep claimed him only a short hour and a half away from his morning alarm. He wished there existed a spell that could put him to a decisive rest. 

  


—

  


There was no reason to why this particular autumn was significantly more humid than the last. Dowoon’s life could be just a little better if his bangs would at least stop sticking to his forehead without the grimy tack of sweat. He wiped his hands on his uniform bottoms, now swapped out for pants as the weather was growing colder. 

In fact, the cold wasn’t the only thing that this season had acquired, and as if to celebrate Dowoon’s thoughts, a deep rumble echoed from the overcast sky. He couldn’t see the rain, but the unshaded concrete ahead of his feet gathered more and more dappled wetness. He witnessed it get wetter as he sat sheltered by the rain under the bus stop.

He sighed, wondering if Wonpil’s awful punctuality would become something he’d eventually have to get used to. 

Dowoon didn’t wait much longer after that until a vague shadow emerged from the thin mist that had assembled as the rain continued to fall in a light drizzle. It was past their meeting time, so the sun was a barely blinking source of light hiding among the grey clouds. Wonpil was clumsily whisking his way through, struggling to balance his umbrella on his shoulder. The Wonpil-typical tote bag was soaked, pinched in his embrace. 

“I’m so sorry,” he panted as he made it before Dowoon’s slouched figure. Dowoon wasn’t sure whether he was wiping sweat or rain from his temples. The fading sunlight made it hard to see, but Wonpil’s bedraggled state was almost expected. “I got held back at school. How was your shift?”

“Boring,” he curtly answered, getting to a stand. They fell into step quickly, Dowoon now placed under the umbrella, as they entered the deeper layers of Magnolia district. “Why did you want to take me here?” 

There was no immediate reply from Wonpil, and when Dowoon assessed the issue, he found him fidgeting around in an effort to swing his bag over his shoulder while steadying his hold upon the umbrella. To Wonpil’s oblivion, Dowoon gently plucked it out of his hand and leveled it so it covered less on his own side. 

“Oh, thank you,” he said when he realised the umbrella had been removed from him. In his frantic putting himself together, Dowoon’s question had eluded him and he kindly repeated it before Wonpil could ask. His ears promptly turned red. “Ah, it’s because you seemed so interested, that’s all.”

Dowoon didn’t bother with a response beyond a nod and focused on following Wonpil through the thickening crowd. It was way busier in the heart of the district than on the outside. He wasn’t sure if he’d hoped that the lineage of whorehouses would be magically replaced by little cafes and innocuous laundromats after his last visit, but ambling past them at a different hour proved to come with a lot of noteworthy changes. 

The streets were jammed with people, the flow of the crowd similar to a sheet of water that had been stirred. The fact that it was inching towards the evening of a Friday certainly didn't improve the situation. There was no particular design in which people were moving, they simply threaded through themselves as they felt. Dowoon prayed to mercy that each turn would provide a wider circulation plane, but for now he would have to live with walking with his entire arm glued to Wonpil’s.

The hassle and dampness of the town didn't allow for much conversation, so he looked around himself in their silent trek, wondering which whorehouse Wonpil would best fit. As amoral as his constatation was, it wasn't his fault that for the last five minutes, he hadn’t spotted a place that did not scream _ the ultimate purpose of this seedy edifice is to give you a good time on the bed in exchange for your money. _

Though he’d been half-anticipating it, the surprise was still striking when Wonpil stopped them in front of a strip club that didn’t look too offbeat given its appropriate environment. Neon lights flared above their heads, pouring down on Wonpil in a shower of pink. Rain still pelted softly on the impermeable fabric of the umbrella, saturating Dowoon's left sleeve where the umbrella couldn't reach. Wonpl hesitated before the step of the entrance.

“There,” he said, pointing towards the upper part of the building. Dowoon squinted through the glaring lights that were more prominent now that the sun had almost settled below the horizon. 

He was about to ask again when a modest illuminated sign with a white volleyball ball drawn on red background came into view. Dowoon blinked as though it would clear his vision and explain everything. “What’s that?”

“That’s where I’m taking you,” Wonpil smiled, Dowoon frowned. 

“To a… volleyball club?”

The faint sound of Wonpil’s laughter was nearly muffled by the meager drizzle, but Dowoon caught it nonetheless. “You also thought I get down on my knees to suck dick, did you?”

Dowoon shifted to give Wonpil a look that expressed his dull perturbation. “You gave me all the reasons to believe that.”

Wonpil’s smile faltered slightly before it surfaced again in a palpable false air. The rain forced them to stand disturbingly close to each other under the umbrella’s shadow, so close that if Wonpil decided to tilt his head, it would be tenderly resting on Dowoon’s shoulder. His entire face was flooded with pink, crossed eyes looking at him with neon swimming in their glass. Dowoon could easily mistake this sight as a vision from one of his dreams.

Before Dowoon could admit to having his heart clenched in an almost painful way, he flicked his gaze to the volleyball sign again. How could such a cramped space enclose multiple volleyball courts, let alone one?

“Because of the video?” Wonpil spoke up, grabbing his attention. Against Dowoon's will, Wonpil ended up really tilting his head, and there, it quietly bumped into his shoulder. The boy straightened himself suddenly as though he was set ablaze. But there was not a hint of shame in his face as he spoke. Dowoon shook his head.

“Because of your bruised knees, maybe, but especially because of your inexplicable disappearance in Magnolia.”

Wonpil contentedly smiled once more. It seemed meaningfully more natural. “Ok, I’ll hand that one to you.”

They had to breach the premises of the strip club in order to get to the upper segment of the building. Dowoon didn’t realise that the entire length of his unprotected arm was sodded with rain until the hair there raised at the contact of the warmth prevailing inside. He looked to Wonpil, his entire body dry save for the few accidental drops clinging to his shoes, seemingly unaware as he guided them to the back of the place. 

They climbed a set of creaking stairs, and when distinct sounds of sneaker screeching against polished ground became audible, Dowoon knew they were approaching the volleyball club. 

The inside appeared to be much more spacious than the exterior made it seem. Dowoon would have never guessed that it was vast enough to fit two identical volleyball courts. Of course, it was nothing more than an optical illusion as the place was still objectively small, perfect to confine loud yells for a pass and hands hitting balls and make them ear-splitting. 

Still, Dowoon had a lot of questions as to why he was actually here. His source for answers was busy folding the umbrella into itself, Dowoon just now noticing its pastel violet colour. Somehow, that was a shade that went really well with its owner’s apparel. Today, his hair possessed more of a harmony than the way it was usually displayed, but the strands had just fallen out of their designated places with the sway of the rain. 

Wonpil’s eyes scanned the area, visibly looking for someone, before slightly opening in recognition. His tiny finger pointed ahead of them. “That’s Park Jaehyung, he’s really good.” 

Dowoon observed in the direction where Wonpil’s finger was indicating to a tall and slim guy, moving with lanky awkwardness but with knowing elegance. Park Jaehyung definitely knew what he was doing, confirming it with a spike that probably left a hole on the other side of the net. 

Dowoon nodded, slightly uneasy, but slowly absorbing what was presented to him. 

Wonpil’s eyes went back to scouring out between the two courts. “And the guy over there, it’s...” he paused midway, lips twitching. Dowoon turned his head, not quite sure what or who Wonpil was gesturing to.

“It’s?” he pressed.

Wonpil’s hand haltingly dropped to his side, uselessly swaying. “He’s good as well.”

Dowoon didn’t have a chance to further interrogate the bizarre change in attitude as Park Jaehyung skidded between them to nudge Wonpil’s shoulder with a stiff finger, fixing him with a neutral glare. Wonpil barely reacted. “You’re late,” he said.

“I know,” Wonpil huffed, adjusting his tote bag, which after a second glance, looked more billowed than it ordinarily was. Dowoon’s attention-span was extra short today. He blamed it on his horrible sleeping schedule, if he could still call it that. “I’m going to change," Wonpil informed.

With that, he left Dowoon and Jaehyung to their own devices. The silence was tight, words would hardly fit if only to strain it even more. Park Jaehyung, though, looked the opposite of awkward.

“You’re Dowoon?”

Dowoon arched a brow. “Where’d you get my name from?”

“Wonpil speaks sometimes,” said Jaehyung, lifting his shoulders into a shrug. “You’re his friend?”

“I suppose so,” Dowoon replied, not quite sure how to address their current bearings. 

“You know, for Wonpil, it’s extremely hard to place that word right now.” There was a ball under Jaehyung’s elbow, which he now started bouncing against the floor. It stayed steady under the control of his hand a few times before colliding with his shoe and rolling away. Dowoon kept his stare in front of him, passively impressed by how many people actually knew of this place. 

“I know,” he said. “I have nothing to do with _ that _.”

Jaehyung scoffed, pushing his glasses in an effort to conceal his blatant eye-roll as though what Dowoon uttered was solid proof that stupidity was inescapable in this world. What was more stupid, though, was the glasses on Jaehyung’s face, waiting to be smashed by a ball. 

“That’s what people always say, but next thing you know, Wonpil gets bullied into cleaning duties again.”

Dowoon briefly pondered on it, and snorted in afterthought. “Are you his boyfriend or something?”

“Ew, no!” Never had Dowoon seen a more appalled expression on a person’s face as Jae turned to him in pseudo disgust, “are you out of your mind? Even if I liked boys, Wonpil is out category man. And I don’t really care what’s going on in your dumb school, but those extra cleaning duties make him come to practice late. Today is the perfect demonstration.” 

He paused thoughtfully, shaking his head amidst his short contemplation. Dowoon watched a frown weigh down Jaehyung’s brows. “Then he’s the last person to leave this place. I mean, this video bullshit is infesting every part of his life in the worst possible ways. God also knows Magnolia is not the safest place to walk by yourself at night. And look at him, he’s tiny. What’s he gonna do if someone even does as little as gently grab him? He’s gonna fall apart man.”

Jaehyung was rambling, and by the time he was done, Dowoon had caught on to the drift. “Yeah, you don’t care.”

“Whatever,” Jaehyung waved a pathetic hand in the air, bashfully diffusing his pretense. “Just be nice to him. I know he’s stuck in his own whimsical, distorted utopian reality, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.” Jaehyung’s gaze dropped to tip of his Nikes, inspecting the laces as though they held the answers of the universe. “And unexpectedly,” he mumbled, and Dowoon couldn’t help but listen carefully, “that saddens me. He used to… laugh all the damn time over nothing. Now, whatever that comes out of his mouth makes him look like he’s about to have a mental breakdown.” Dowoon couldn’t agree more. His antipathy towards Jaehyung calmly wilted. “How do you go from being the happiest person to walk the earth to this down-at-the-heel stump?”

The reverberation of a ball slamming against the ground cut through Jaehyung’s speech. He became self-aware of how long he’d been complaining for, and decisively sealed his lips shut. 

“I don’t know,” Dowoon responded honestly, because he’d like to find out as well. 

“That’s the point.”

They waited for a while in complete silence. Dowoon wondered how hard it could be to slip out of a school uniform and slip into some shorts and a tee. Longer than any other normal person would take, it seemed, but Wonpil was no ordinary person in so many different ways. To his relief, Wonpil appeared a few awkward minutes later, but lingered in his steps.

“Oh, there he is,” Jaehyung said, pushing his glasses up. “See, normally, he’d be calling me in that tooth-rottingly sweet tone of his, but he doesn’t do that anymore. Trust me, it’s a big deal.”

With that, Jaehyung left Dowoon to his own thoughts. He jogged towards Wonpil, swinging an arm around his shoulders in the same way that Dowoon usually handled his mother’s favourite porcelain plates. Jaehyung hooked his fingers to some strands of Wonpil's hair, those that were bleached. The sight was nothing short of... soft. Dowoon hand jerked reflexively to his chest when something twisted inside. 

Wonpil’s knees hadn’t been exposed to the world’s scrutiny in a while until now, and seeing them again suddenly made a lot more sense. Wonpil tripped more than the person next to him who was playing with his laces untied. Dowoon didn't know enough about volleyball to judge Wonpil's abilities with an arbitrary eye, but one thing he could say with conviction was that never once did he smile. Even when Wonpil scored, he drifted away from the rest, stare fixed to the ground.

In any case, if Dowoon thought of his own posture as a horrid slouch, it could never compare to the way that Wonpil’s shoulders deflated, as though something heavy was perpetually crouched upon its small expanse. 

Watching Wonpil hit the ball was like watching someone balancing a glass of water on a string. You never knew when it would collapse and shatter, but you would grit your teeth somehow feeling like it would, as though a tragic end was already written for it. It was a sad evidence, but like any glass holding itself on a string, Wonpil was bound to break sooner or later.

For the rest of the night, Jaehyung's words loomed in his head with meaning, heavy and unforgettable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the only reason i took a little longer for this, aside from a fairly busy week, is because i was planning for a new jaepil/allpil story, it needs a little more polishing before i start to write it, but hopefully i'll be able to, soon! when i finish this, i guess ;;
> 
> anyways, dowoon's voice in 365247. that's it, that's all i wanted to say
> 
> hope everyone's doing ok!


	6. (6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets unveiled lead to a lapse in emotional judgment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back from the dead ! 
> 
> to those who stuck around: thank you so much for everything, commenters and silent readers alike. your patience is really appreciated. 
> 
> here's a chapter. the length is not quite the usual, but it had a lot on its plate and i didn't want it to be too overwhelming. 
> 
> anyway, hope you enjoy ! :D

Dowoon pried his eyes open at the shrill sound of the bell ringing. If his clearing vision didn't reveal a classroom, he would have probably forgotten that he was at school. While other students diligently packed up their books and pens, Dowoon remained still in his seat, intending to stay exactly where he was. That was until a hand touched his shoulder.

He expected it to be Taeyung urging him to catch up with the rest of their friends, so he thought better of responding. But this was Korean class, which he shared with none of them. As he would discover upon turning his head, the hand actually turned out to belong to Sungjin.

"Uh, hey," Sungjin said. Dowoon blinked, not quite attuned to his surroundings just yet.

Dowoon being tired didn't mean he was bad-mannered, so he shifted in his seat to properly greet Sungjin. "Yeah?"

"Just came to say that the girl over there has a huge crush on you," he replied, sticking a thumb behind his shoulder. Dowoon peered over and discovered a group of girls bunched together at the corner of the classroom. One of them had her flushed face buried in her hands. The others squealed in sheer exhilaration when met with Dowoon's bleary acknowledgement. 

He fought the urge to roll his eyes. Was this middle school?

"Okay," he said instead, and Sungjin's stolid face seemed to agree with his thoughts. "Thanks."

"Yeah, she wanted to let you know, that's it. Good luck."

"Huh,” he snorted. “Yeah.” He could use the luck and perhaps plenty more enthusiasm. 

Dowoon came to a rise a few seconds after Sungjin left. He gave the embarrassed girl a tight smile as he strode to the door, exiting the classroom and roughly missing the chorus of happy shrieks that entailed. 

One may think Dowoon’s perpetual indifference would incarcerate him in his own thoughts and agenda, but he in fact had not forgotten where and when he had to show up for his first ever music collaboration with Wonpil. 

His single-track mind blurred his peripheral vision as he scampered his way straight to the music room. That was what erased Hyorin out of his sight and failed his preparation for the hand that came to grab his wrist. It tugged him back to face a pair of eyes he’d intended to avoid all week.

“What’s with the scuttling, Yoon? It’s not like you have anywhere to be, ever, right?” Hyorin made a point of puckering her lips and grinning at him with her irritating look of princess prestige. 

“Unless it’s wherever I can’t find you, I’d run my whole life,” he said, trying to whisk his hand out of her grasp. He was met with resistance and nails digging deeper into his skin. 

“Remind me again why we’re friends.” Her eyes narrowed to a squint. 

“I’d love to say we’re not, but your weird obsession with me is gonna block that out anyway.”

Hyorin chose to ignore his open insult. “You do realize how absent you are nowadays, right? You don’t hang out with your friends anymore.”

Dowoon scoffed. “I was hoping you’d notice.”

  
“Let me help you remember something,” she hissed, forcefully pulling him closer. “When your mom cheated on your dad, we’re the ones who had your back. Keep crawling away finding new company, you know you’ll regret it someday.”

Dowoon willingly held eye-contact, staring her down. “The only thing I’d regret right now is listening to you. Nothing you did can be described as having my back, and only your delusional, warped definition of friendship will make it seem that way. Now let go of me because I’m not a gentleman who doesn’t punch chicks.” 

Not losing the staring contest, Hyorin relinquished both the hold she had upon his wrist and her dignity in the moment. Her jaw muscles tightened as Dowoon breezed past her towards the staircase that led to the music room. Smoothing a hand through his hair, he was stopped once again, much to his soaring frustration, this time by the same horde of girls fawning over him earlier. 

“Hey Dowoon,” one of them spoke up in tandem with giggles in accurate fangirl style, “would you like to have lunch with Mina tomorrow? She promises it’ll be fun!” 

Even with the exasperation infesting his brain, it would plague Dowoon to be rude to these girls. “No thanks, I’m busy. But I have somewhere to be right now, do you mind…?” That was not his best act of friendly demeanor, but at least it was his best attempt in a moment of sheer irritation. The girls’ downcast faces betrayed their letdown in response to him, but Dowoon hardly got himself a proper eyeful as he had already turned his back to them and dashed towards where he pressingly had to be. 

After so many obstacles, he finally made it to the music room, barely unscathed. Without a doubt, all that stopping had his mood somewhat stifled. Less than favorable when a few seconds separated him from confronting a tragedy in flesh that was Wonpil. 

When he entered the room, the space was empty save for, expectedly, Wonpil seated behind his piano. He greeted Dowoon with a smile shortly before returning to his keyboard.

“Should I be worried about your very friendly welcome to your private music club?” Dowoon joked, losing his bag and dumping it somewhere he could remember later. 

“You’re the last person who should be talking about friendliness,” Wonpil launched back. There was amusement unveiled in his attitude and wide smile. Settling behind his drum set, Dowoon decided he could indulge in the change of air while it lasted. 

“Hey, at least I don’t suck at volleyball,” he shrugged. 

“Ouch, low blow,” Wonpil chuckled and weakly threw a pen at Dowoon, which was effortlessly dodged given that it flew everywhere but at him. “In any case, I’m ready to bet how hard I’ll destroy you at it.” 

“Be my guest,” Dowoon taunted, testing how his long abandoned stick twirling skills would look on his unseasoned fingers. “You don’t even need laces to trip over.”

“Yeah, make fun of my handicap,” Wonpil dryly snorted, dragging his index across the keyboard and creating an unpleasant sound. Dowoon dropped his drumstick on the floor, and left it to roll away. He observed Wonpil’s grim expression with a pinch of guilt.

“Since when do you have a handicap?” he asked seriously. 

“Since I was born with two left feet,” Wonpil giggled, thrilled to have completely turned Dowoon into a fool. He never thought Wonpil was capable of looking this blissful, relaxed and enjoying life’s motions all at once until he’d seen it flourishing in this moment. He would be lying to say it didn’t bring him an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. He made a note of thanking whatever eased Wonpil in such good a mood.

“You’re an idiot,” he shook his head with a grin, bending down to gather his missing stick. 

“You’re clearly the bigger idiot,” Wonpil continued his fading laughter before clearing his throat and reaching for his backpack. “Anyways, do you mind if I do my homework first? I don’t want it to clog my weekend.”

“No I don’t mind you being a teacher’s pet for an hour,” Dowoon tried spinning his drumstick with his two fingers again, without much success. It fell on the ground and rolled to the tip of Wonpil’s shoes. Ashamed of the amusedly disappointed look he received from Wonpil, he shot the latter a faint yet forced grin. 

“And I don’t mind you totally sucking at twirling your drumstick while I do what any normal student would do.” 

“Hey I may suck right now, but at least I don’t kiss my teachers’ asses.”

“By what, simply completing a paper they assigned? Please, you’re clearly unaware of how schooling works.” 

“Well then I dare you to name me at least one person who does their homework at…” Dowoon glanced down at his nonexistent watch. “At like three in the afternoon?” 

“Because there’s a certain time someone has to do their homework?” Wonpil said with a roll of the eyes. “You know what, nothing about this banter even makes sense. Who knew you had such a stubborn, rotten pair of lips.” 

“Alright, I’ll silently revisit my stick twirling skills--”

“--that you desperately need to revitalise--”

“--while you’re busy acting like a jerk. Sounds cool and doable to you?” 

The room grew silent for a few seconds. The emptiness lasted with Dowoon and Wonpil locking gazes, each wearing their appropriate variant of smiles and whatever meaning they held. The moment was disrupted with Wonpil flicking his eyes to his stack of homework in front of him and spreading it atop the piano. Dowoon coagulated his attention on the sticks in his hands, alarmed at his heart pounding in his chest in a way it never had before. 

\--

Even if he could, Dowoon didn’t count how much time had passed since they began testing out their music synergy. The only thing that was made clear was that they struggled to meet each other’s tempo, and it must have taken two hours for their partly rusty musical talent to finally harmonise. 

Of course, that didn’t escape one or two rounds of teasing, which was at large aimed at how much they sucked at this or that. Dowoon wouldn’t even omit the part where Wonpil took it upon himself to give up his seat, round the piano and travel all over to the cage of his drum set to shove Dowoon off his rickety stool. 

It didn’t occur to him then, but now as he was relaxed on the otherwise uncomfortable bench of the bus stop, swimming in the sobering night air, Dowoon could at least admit it inwardly that the last couple of hours had been the most enjoyable in years. He hadn’t even been able to visualise what his true self behaved like anymore, so sucked in deep within the layers of false pretense his many predicaments necessitated him into assuming in a measure to blend in. Not that it served to benefit him too much. But the point was that he felt looser in Wonpil’s presence, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that two lost souls betrayed by their own kinds would liberate each other. 

Next to him, Wonpil breathed out a sigh. Dowoon believed that if Wonpil had a pool of energy, it was quite sparse. As a matter of fact, his facial expression right now worked for quite the demonstration. Wonpil retracted to his drained-of-life aura, his eyebags and unattended hair standing out more than ever. It was like Wonpil behind that keyboard was only a product of Dowoon’s imagination. 

Involuntarily, Dowoon’s eyes drifted to Wonpil’s knees, now covered by pants. During the South-Korean winter, their tiny town seemed particularly exposed to its most unforgiving, frostbite-granting potential. If their school did not make it protocol to switch out shorts for warmer pants at this time of year, they would be committing the most barbarous crime against humanity. Thankfully enough for Wonpil, their school was not administered by some sadistic tyrant. 

Innocently stowed within Wonpil’s embrace was his pink tote bag. The drag of neon green paint still lasted through its resilience since the time Dowoon had previously seen it. He didn’t try to be inconspicuous as he curiously eyed the bag, the veiled knees, the sporadically bleached hair, the faded impression of a split lip. On a whim, he reached out to grab Wonpil’s wrist and bring it to his lap. 

“What are you doing?” was Wonpil’s reaction, though no active objection was made known. 

Dowoon inspected Wonpil’s hand. He could see the subtle calluses, not yet developed into permanence. He felt the rough texture of those calluses with his own fingers brushing across Wonpil’s palm. 

“Your gargoyle friend told me you were held up after school.” There was not a stutter to his words, nor was there a halt in his examination. Wonpil seemed shy under the scrutiny. 

“What did he say?”  
  
Dowoon shot his head up to fix Wonpil with a knowing glimpse. “Are you bullied into doing their cleaning duties for them?”

There was no immediate response from Wonpil aside from his headstrong eye-contact, but Dowoon was privy to this elusive part of the boy. “Do you see any other way? When you become a target, you don’t un-become it by opposing them. Only brings more attention to me, and that’s really not what I want right now.” Wonpil extracted his wrist from Dowoon’s laxened clutch. “It’ll give these asshats more reasons to bully me. Not ideal after what happened…” Wonpil winced. 

“You’re willingly letting it happen to you,” Dowoon pointed out. “The hair bleaching, your split lip, and what the fuck is up with your bag too?”

“Well, unless you’re blind, you can tell it’s been painted over. You know? As a way to get on my nerves? Jeez, your spying on me is getting out of control,” Wonpil dully snorted. “You don’t have to drag it out of me. Yeah I wake up every morning not wanting to get out of bed, yeah I dread going to school, yeah that volleyball club is just the best distraction this godforsaken town has to offer. I hate it all but there’s nothing else to do right now. That video is leaked and it’s the end of my social life, y’know? The world is filled with judgment and a hierarchy of all sorts, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.”

The best option Dowoon had at the moment was to stay quiet and comprehensively absorb Wonpil’s waterfall of feelings. It involved no tears, just a sliver of self-pity and a full-course meal of hopelessness. For that, Dowoon couldn’t do much to mitigate the pain and difficulties either. 

“I’m fine, Dowoon,” Wonpil waved at his gawking in an attempt to dismiss it. “And if you want me to be honest with you, I really can’t tell whether your prying is out of morbid curiosity or genuine concern. In my short time here, I’ve seen enough to know how unfriendly you are towards the rest of the world. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here because I clearly have nothing else to lose, but don’t blame me for thinking you getting chummy with me after my sex tape scandal isn’t suspicious.”

Dowoon shrugged, unaffected. “You could use a friend. I could use a friend. Not everything has to start from something, you know?” Wonpil watched his face, eyes flickering on his every feature. He seemed to be struggling to grasp basic concepts. “It’s that simple. You’d have already kicked me in the nuts if I was judging.”

“You should consider writing your philosophy down somewhere. It’ll only take a few minutes before it’s finished and edited,” Wonpil gingerly chuckled and shook his head. 

“My parents,” Dowoon continued, whether it was asked for or not. “I love them to death but... a few years back, my mom cheated on my dad. This town is tiny, word spreads faster than fire and before I knew it, my mom’s affair was the biggest gossip in our school. My response to that was to build a shield of indifference around myself, and it damned me to this day. It’s what shaped the reputation you referred to earlier. The unfriendliness.” Dowoon paused, closely spying Wonpil’s face losing its edge and seizing the most apparent of compassion. “We have our own coping mechanisms, mine didn’t work well. Just reconsider the way you respond to this situation, even if it’s your last year here. Everything you leave behind unaccounted for will catch up with you at some point.” He didn’t intend the double-entendre here, but the importance was that Wonpil could use the information to grow upon mishappenstances. 

No crickets sang to furnish the silence, no passing car or stopping busses disturbed Wonpil’s internal reflection. Only coldness filled in the few inches separating them. Having seemingly gathered his words, Wonpil pursed his lips into a faint smile and peered at Dowoon with the most adulating gratitude. “I needed that reality check,” he spoke quietly and made himself small. “Thank you Dowoon.” He looked as though he itched to ask more, but reasoned to refrain from pursuing a depressing conversation. 

Dowoon, though, aside from totally lacking social tact, was born more brazen and uncensored. “Those knees,” he cleared his throat and pointed to the knees in question to get Wonpil to look into his eyes. Eyes always showed genuine interest. “They getting better?”

Wonpil shook his head. “Nah. Intense practise yesterday. Look at this.” He took a few seconds to properly adjust his leg. He rolled his pants up to his knees, revealing multiple strips of bruises. The fact alone that he trusted Dowoon with better judgment was something worthy of celebration, but the bruises themselves, darker and made conspicuous sitting on a canvas of pallure, were factors of his frown. 

“Is this passion or desperation?”

“What?” Wonpil lets out a nervous laugh as he unfolded his pant leg back into place, surely growing cold. He made a face. “What about this reminds you of desperation?” 

“Come on,” Dowoon scratched his temple, rolling his eyes. “You can stop lying to yourself. This is not your passion. Music is. You seem forcefully devoted.”

“And let me guess, you want to know why,” Wonpil clicked his tongue in disbelief, side-eyeing him with the open implication to give up his jimmying. 

In a poor and mocking attempt at saving himself, Dowoon feigned ignorance. “I didn’t say that. You said that.”

“Yes you did. It’s very clear between the lines. Don’t take me for an idiot.” 

“Well, in your own words, banter rarely makes sense, so let’s skip over that.”

Wonpil gazes distantly at the interest blatantly spread across Dowoon’s face. “Why do you want to know so much?”

“I’m just asking. You choose whether you’re answering or not.” He shrugged, wondering if that had perhaps evolved into some sort of tic. Wonpil expressed his surrender and reconsideration in the form of a soft punch to Dowoon’s upper arm. _ How endearing _. 

“There’s something you might need to include in your kit of social conduct, it’s called discretion,” he joked, heaving a sigh. 

“I’ll think about it, but you were saying something,” Dowoon smirked in triumph.

“Well,” he started, discernibly hesitating. “To put it simply, you’re right. I don’t play volleyball out of pleasure -- actually I hate it. But this one club is important in the sense that it’s secluded. Nobody goes to Magnolia for volleyball, and nobody will ever find me there to ruin everything I’ve worked for.” Wonpil eyed him in pseudo disdain. “With the exception of Yoon Dowoon, of course. Do you work for the CIA or something? Don’t look at me like you’ve won.”

“I’m not. Keep going.” Dowoon could hardly keep himself from grinning. 

Wonpil gave him a glance of suspicion. “Anyways, there’s an upcoming volleyball competition that could possibly get me out of here for the rest of the year. The competition is in Jeju, so if I qualify, I won’t ever have to come back here. I haven’t exactly said this clearly but… there’s a high chance I’d have to redo this year. I swear absence always speaks louder than presence.”

Dowoon hummed in acknowledgement. The volleyball club made sense now, but he needed some clarification regarding some fleeting rumors that had yet to be silenced. “So then why are you here in the first place?” 

“My dad’s work.”

Dowoon arched a brow. “In this tiny town? Didn’t know there were businesses worth moving over for.”

“Not exactly,” Wonpil chuckled. “He works in Jinhae, but rent is cheaper here. We used to live in Busan.” Dowoon hummed again. 

“So you didn’t drop out because you’re a sex addict and consequently had low grades?” 

A look of absolute horror crossed Wonpil’s face. “Are you out of your mind? Where did you hear that from?”

Dowoon staggered back in surprise. “Relax, just a rumor. Your chance to clarify.” 

“Ugh,” Wonpil sighed, thoroughly appalled and disenchanted by the worst of humanity. “All I did back then was read. I had a steady life with a foreseeable future. My grades were not at the top of the class but they were really good. I had reliable friends. Nobody cared to find out why I moved in the first place, and once the scandal dropped, everyone just started assuming the worst.” Wonpil huffed and grabbed his head. “This is incredible. You didn’t believe the rumors, did you?”

Dowoon pretended to think. “Maybe.”

“God, you’re disgusting.” Wonpil crossed his arms.

“And you’re gullible,” Dowoon specified and rightfully earned himself a shove to the shoulder. “Rumors tend to be ludicrous, and I tend to never believe them without some sort of background knowledge. And our school might be in some south-korean forgotten ruins, but we’re reputed to come up with the craziest of lies. Trust me.”

“You’re insufferable, but I appreciate you enough to let it pass.”

“I’m honored,” Dowoon thanked him. “But seriously can’t you ask your parents to move?”

“And tell them their poster boy for integrity had his intercourse at fourteen recorded _ and _leaked? As a parent, how do you even respond to that?”

“Wait, they don’t know?” Dowoon asked, dumbfounded. He’d always assumed everything and everyone that encompassed Wonpil would be well versed in with the situation given its gravity. He never thought about it, but if truly everyone knew, Wonpil probably would have had a word with the principal already. Either to receive his two cents like the gossip-involved loser that Mr. Choi was, either to be expelled for another irrational reason. 

“I don’t know. Maybe they do. I’m not that close to them. They’re probably pretending not to know. They don’t want to talk about it. Knowing them, they’d rather let it fester and devour me alive rather than confront it and sit through the discomfort for one hour tops.” 

“That’s grim.” Dowoon let his stare collapse to his hands, freezing in the stifling wind. He was briskly reminded of the sun already setting in the horizon and how dark the world had suddenly become, and still, no busses ever came to pick them up. Wonpil seemed to have overlooked any of the circumstances, so he guessed the boy must have been dying to speak and let his emotions take over. “I’m not in a position to give advice but, why don’t you come clean? Tell them everything, make them sit through that discomfort. At least it’ll be over once and for all and you won’t have to put up with this bullshit anymore.”

Wonpil sucked in a breath before sharply releasing it. The dark made the puff of air visible. “My mom’s homophobic.” He lowered his eyes. 

That had Dowoon gripped, stunned in place. It was out in the open. Though the video made it clear that Wonpil liked boys, Dowoon’s warped rationale let doubts settle in his mind. “She… what, wow.” Reduced to speechlessness, Dowoon wasn’t sure whether to focus on Wonpil’s mother's obviously twisted morale or his hyper-awareness of Wonpil’s thigh touching his. 

“I know,” Wonpil sighed, himself unaware of the frenzy blurring his mind. 

Dowoon cleared his thoughts and averted his attention to more important things that did not involve warm thighs and pink lips. “Then why hadn’t she said a thing yet? If she was homophobic, the first thing on her mind would be to bathe you in holy water or consult a doctor right?”

“I told you. They’re pretending not to know. I guess it’s easier for my mom to forget that she gave birth to a boy who likes it in the ass, you know?”

The bluntness caught Dowoon off guard, and the side-effects included a more punctuated awareness of crossed eyes pinning him down and thin wrists he suddenly wanted to grab. His front of indifference seldom wavered, but that didn’t make it unbreakable. In this moment, though, Dowoon needed it more than anything. 

“What about your dad?” he asked in place of submitting himself to his sourceless urges.

“He’s chill, I’ve vaguely heard their conversation before. Something about accepting and talking to Wonpil.” Dowoon never thought two simple words could make a situation so self-explanatory.

Their discussion was essentially tapering at this point, something Dowoon was partly glad for because he had some solitary internal reconciliation to do. “Then…” he said, licking his lips. He carefully observed Wonpil, gauging for a reaction. All he seized was a pair of captivating eyes, blinking to his lips, and back to his nose bridge. “Why don’t you run away?”

“Dowoon,” Wonpil spoke. Fear coloured his voice, but Dowoon couldn’t be sure what Wonpil could possibly be afraid of in that suggestion. “What would I live off of?” When Dowoon didn’t find it in himself to adequately respond, Wonpil shook his head and turned back to appraise whatever scenery unraveled ahead of him. “Forget about it. I’ve said enough. And if you haven’t realised,” he glanced down at his watch. “It’s 7 and there has been zero circulation the entire time we were talking.”

“Welcome to our town, where none of Busan’s busy streets ever intersect.” 

“Yeah it’s a total wasteland,” Wonpil agreed. Just as he said that, he peeked his head out the vacant road and his face lit up with newfound energy. “Well, there you go. Speaking of the devil.”

“Weird way of referring to a bus,” Dowoon snorted. Wonpil sat back down in his place and slung his tote bag over his shoulder in preparation. A cold hand landed itself upon Dowoon’s knee, jerking him out of his wits. His hand clutched at the bench beneath him, desperately willing his heart to slow down. Staring down at Wonpil’s hand on his knee was not part of his intention, but neither was his hammering heart. 

“Thanks so much for everything, Dowoon. You have no idea how badly I’ve been dying to say these things. It’s like I’ve found my ability to speak and joke and be sarcastic again.” 

“Sure,” he halfheartedly grinned, patting Wonpil’s hand once in a signal for him to let go. Wonpil’s mouth formed an alerted O before he briskly removed it from Dowoon’s knee. 

“Well, thanks.” He awkwardly looked away. Their saving grace emerged in the form of the arriving bus, and Wonpil wasted not a second in fleeing the scene and the tension he left in his wake. Just before boarding the vehicle, he waved at Dowoon over his shoulder and gave him the kind of smile someone gave when steeply uncomfortable. “See you around, Dowoon.”

“Yeah, peace,” he saluted. Once the bus strutted away, carrying with it Wonpil, their secrets and dizzying thoughts, Dowoon was left to emptily gawk at the lonely, unused road stretching in front of him. 

One last thought crossed his mind, one which he dreaded most, yet one which was so destructive in essence that it would wound up shutting off the entire system of Dowoon’s brain: how could he have forgotten that he had seen Wonpil stark naked, having sex and crying out the most obscene of sounds? It would take monstrous effort for that mental image to be completely dispelled and eradicated. Not without leaving its own traces behind, obviously. 

Dowoon was going to hell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a side note: the town they live in is unnamed, mainly cuz i kinda made it up. it's not that important, except for the fact that it's remote and small. 
> 
> also, sorry if the tone of the story or my writing style is a little off, i'm writing this months after my initial idea sparked, so it obviously will not be the same. although i am trying to match everything together! leave me a little time to figure it out haha
> 
> thanks so much for reading! don't hesitate to leave your thoughts/complaints/suggestions in the comments! i can take anything


	7. (7)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Involuntary mistakes are called accidents. But was it really involuntary...? Dowoon confronts Freudian philosophy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i just realized i was writing some words the british way all along, so i kept to it. i don't even know how that happened. 
> 
> i hope you enjoy this chapter ! foreword: it's messy as hell and i honestly have no idea what i'm doing

Dreams were indescribable. It was a common rule. They were abstract and intangible and outright _ weird _ \-- often unstructured and birthed by random sights or a person’s innermost thoughts. Thoughts that didn’t want to be found, had no rightful place in the world, offending when spoken of; their screeching lust for existence would manifest in dreams. Thoughts which all became subjects of moral filtering before some of them would sink back into one’s subconscious. And then they would fall under one allegorical label of _ taboo _. 

Freud called it the_ it _. A person’s raw desires lurking at the bottom of their very essence, the massive weight underlying the tip of the iceberg. You dreamed of what you truly craved, all ethics pushed aside. It was the most critical element in determining a person’s bluntest nature. Dowoon would rather call it bullshit. 

And as he thought that, it lent him to a vague awareness that he was dreaming. Asleep and tucked away from reality, yet awakened, conscious somewhere in his head. Seeing soundless images with his mind’s eye in a realm where pain in all shapes and forms was reduced to a far-flung myth. 

His dream began as a blankness of ebony. There was a semblance of movement before a distant dot of light emerged. He was in a car, as the light would reveal. His mom was driving. Next to her was a younger man, a yellow stocking hat covering his short, curly hair. 

Dowoon felt something weighing in his right hand. He glanced down, noticing a gun. Without much thought or real-life rationale, he stuck the firearm against the head of the man in the passenger seat. His fingers trembled with desire. His nostrils flared with animosity. 

The stocking cap intruder was just about to witness his last seconds on earth when a stone-cold hand came to rest upon Dowoon’s shoulder. He turned, making out his dad’s frown sitting on a face dripping with bloody vengeance. 

“Do it,” he whispered with malice. “He ruined our lives. He ruined _ your _life. Nobody will know.”

A few seconds of watching his dad’s disturbed expression, Dowoon decided to retract the gun back into his lap. The ardor on his dad’s face morphed into one of expressive confusion. His steel grip was still around it. The power of killing laid perilous within his reach. 

Dowoon turned to look at the window, following the blur of the outside world. It was coloured in white, bus stop benches layered with snow, strip clubs closed midday, vacated volleyball fields at the reception of snowflakes. His school swiftly came into sight, where Hyorin, Taeyung and Sungsoo were eagerly waiting for him. His year’s president was still sodding wet with pink liquid. Nameless heads snapped to the car in which he was darkly brooding in. 

Without preamble, muffled laughter erupted. Wide, humiliating, derisive smiles could be found on everyone’s face. Dowoon didn’t have to hear it to know what they were laughing at. The asshole sitting in front of him shifted in his peripheral vision, discernibly leaning towards his mother to ask what was the hold up. 

Face set straight, eyes heavy with tears and exhaustion, Dowoon slowly moved the gun upwards, pinning the tip to his chin. His finger was ready on the trigger, toying it with tentative pressure, but a warm hand wrapped itself around his wrist before he could commit to anything. Dowoon’s sight was swimming in tears when he glanced sideways. Wonpil’s disfigured silhouette smiled at him. 

“Don’t do it,” he whispered. Tears burnt the skin of Dowoon’s cheeks as they slid down. They stung. He dropped the gun, his point-blank stare on Wonpil refusing to leave. Wonpil’s hands hesitated before they lightly brushed over his own clothing. 

His lascivious adventure began with one button undone, then two, before it became three -- his shirt glided off his shoulders, revealing smooth, innocuous pallure. Dowoon’s hands still trembled when he pushed them down the seat to elevate himself onto all fours. He crawled towards Wonpil, cooling teardrops pooled under his chin. Car seats had never been fictitiously longer. Why was he so near, yet so out of reach?

Wonpil’s face painted the picture of ecstasy. His one-man sensual show involved lip-biting, naughty fingers teasing the hem of his pants, uncombed hair, bedroom eyes clouded with one single motive. Dowoon’s blood was pumping in every direction, collecting warmth somewhere behind his bracket. Fed up, he grabbed Wonpil by his neck, its slope so elegant and long and free of blemish. A lonely blank canvas begging to be bruised. Dowoon must be extremely strong in his dream, or Wonpil must weigh nothing, because hauling him into his lap felt like literal child’s play. 

Dowoon promptly shed off his shirt. More pieces of clothing spilled to the ground. It was all flesh against flesh hotness. His muscles twitched. His stomach twisted and turned in sore anticipation. Wonpil’s hooded eyes invited him to do more, whatever _ more _entailed. His thin arms traveled everywhere, cupping his neck, slithering down his naked torso, pushing and pulling him, engulfing the whole of Dowoon. Something slimy and translucent was dripping from his lips. 

“Kiss me Dowoon,” Wonpil moaned, throwing his head sideways. 

“I can’t,” he replied, his words nearly deprived of voice. Despite himself, Dowoon inched closer, eyes crossed over intently observing Wonpil’s lips. There could be a snowstorm right outside the car window, but the temperature between them kept rising to a delusional point. 

“Come on,” Wonpil whined in urgency, bouncing himself atop Dowoon’s bare thighs. “Your clothes are off. You only have one thing to do.” 

Dowoon’s nose bumped into Wonpil’s chin. He closed his eyes, resigning himself to the heat that was smothering them. He tilted his head, lips tingling with delirious want, expecting a wet and responsive reception. He was so close, he knew. The searing breath of air fanning across his lips guided him. He only had a slim inch to seal. His brain switched off human behavior and welcomed primitive desires.

Another feverish hand covered his mouth, putting him to a decisive stop. He carved open his eyes, chest fluttering with a sort of pain that didn’t exist. His heart sunk to the pit of his guts when he was greeted with Wonpil’s usual crestfallen face, devoid of emotion, robbed of a will to live. 

“Look behind you,” he scolded. 

With reluctance, Dowoon peered over his shoulder. A wave of students was holding their phones up, recording them. A man whose face held the aged reflection of Wonpil was shaking his head in disappointment. Next to him, a woman was desperately praying, glossy eyes shot towards the sky. Flashes blinked back at him. Clicks went off in succession, creating a homogenous sound. 

Fingers pinched both his cheeks together and whirled his head back around. Wonpil’s glare at him was a clear disclosure of his anger. His jaw looked tensed up. His pupils quaked within his bloodshot eyes. 

“You will never know what this feels like,” he seethed through gritted teeth. Dowoon felt himself slip from Wonpil’s embrace, sucked into the carseat, before disappearing in utter darkness. 

.

.

.

Dowoon’s eyes snapped open to his unlit room, submerged in partial darkness. It took a little squirming for him to realise he was laid prone atop a millpond made of his own freezing sweat. In fact, it permeated through everything that was in its way; his shirt, his sheets, his calves, the back of his head. He could feel his toes curling away from the winter’s cool that had swarmed his room. Throat completely parched and eyeballs aching with confusion, he braced himself up on his two wobbly elbows, scanning for his missing blanket. 

He groaned upon lifting his head, finding the effort too taxing and everything above his neck unusually heavy. The tattered haze of his dream remained hovering in the air, overlapping his vision. The image of Wonpil’s pale face creased with sheer misery was opaque against the obsidian backdrop of his room, and came between blinks. It was like glaring at the sun too long, except Dowoon had been glaring at his own dream.

Ignoring the optical illusion, Dowoon cringed as he shuffled around in his land of wet sheets. The soreness and fatigue strapped to his limbs considerably slowed down his search for his blanket, so Dowoon decided the waste of time could be favored into looking for every ounce of sleep he could gather before it was time to wake up. He flopped back down, making sure to roll himself onto his back on a dry spot of his bed. 

He sighed, pressed the base of his palms firmly into his eye sockets. On the way down, his hands made sloppy work of wiping all remaining sweat clinging to his temple and the hair around there. 

Dreadful, he kept himself motionless, staring at the illuminated dust weightlessly drifting in the air as his mind formed a certain suspicion. Gulping around a knot, his weak fingers crept south past his cotton t-shirt and towards his groin, blindly examining the condition of his sweatpants with unsurety. He heaved a sigh of relief when he discovered it to be untainted. 

The nauseating abyss of his room was telltale of the ungodly hours upon which his consciousness unfittingly skimmed. By way of habit, Dowoon thought it might still be a long way before dawn would bleed into the sky. 

Not without stiffly consulting the remnants of his dream permanently etched into his vision, Dowoon eased his eyes shut and leveled his breathing in a frail man’s attempt at knocking himself out. 

The few hours until the next time he woke up melted by in an impression of mere minutes. From that point on, Dowoon’s day couldn’t be described past a whirl of colours and vague, external sounds pounding within his head. The pathetic echoes of his heart limping through its beats drowned out his friends’ badgering agitation. Lessons all but registered in distracted ears. Fallen under a robotic pattern, his motor skills unwittingly performed their duties of carrying Dowoon from one place to another, washing his hands after using the urinal, sitting him down at the bus stop and leaving his eyes to brokenly stare into space behind the counter at the convenience store. 

Apparently, Dowoon’s choice of behavior today was worth nothing beyond a shake of the head. His manager clearly thought of the wrong day for a better outlook on sales, and consequently had zero inclination to trust Dowoon’s clerk inabilities with boosting their profit. The only thing he felt like Dowoon could be entrusted with was the key of the store when he would be instructed to close up at least a couple of hours too early, and of course, a permission to go home. 

Two text messages stopped him from taking his designated bus home for entirely different reasons, but which swayed him to the same resolution nonetheless. 

**Mom**

_ When are you coming home, sweetheart? _

_ Xoxo, mom _

**Wonpil**

_ come watch me today? i promise i won’t be offended by your immature ways of telling someone they’re bad at something _

Dowoon stood in the dark of their lifeless town, silently watching his phone for what could have been a full minute. His first idea materialised in his act of deleting his mother’s message. His second idea was to… stubbornly withstand the cold as he dumbly observed Wonpil’s unread message as though it would spark to life eventually.

_ Come watch me _was an extremely poor choice of words in the world Yoon Dowoon was currently living in, where his dream still vividly played behind his lids. He opted for a short reply before placing his phone back in his pocket. Sighing, he walked to the bus stop and dimmed his emotions into nothing. 

He later found himself traipsing on the forbidden streets of Magnolia district where loud, cacophonous music reverberated in his ears and under his feet. Multiple sets of hands reached out to grab him, heavily tinted lips whispered sensual lures into his ears. Much older women eye-batted their way into convincing Dowoon to sleep with them for money. He simply shot their wanton efforts to the ground with a shrug and pertained to shouldering through the crowd that stood between him and the volleyball club. 

Facing the building and peering up at the dazzling red volleyball sigh perched at its front, the only thing on his mind was how out of place it was for the strip club behind him to play Bon Jovi’s _ You Give Love A Bad Name _as their theme song. 

He was stalling the inevitable, he knew it better than anyone else. 

Before his better judgment made him reevaluate his ultimatum, Dowoon forced his feet to climb up the brief steps that led to the strip club, and then up the swiveling staircase that led to the place where shoes against polished ground could make the most intolerable of sounds. As he ventured further, the blaring Bon Jovi music became faint and muffled. 

It took him a shred of patience and a short number of eye flicks to find Wonpil among the sweat-coated players. If Dowoon could school his face into total nonchalance, he could maintain the general population’s oblivion to the flip-flopping in his stomach.

Compared to the others, Wonpil’s small frame stuck out like a sore thumb. As he skipped around the court, his unruly tuft of hair bounced against his forehead, still unyielding in its refusal to fall under a pattern. His bangs were swept over his eyes, fixing him with a boyish quality. His neck shone with the grimy shimmer of sweat. His legs emerged out of a pair of shorts. Dowoon gulped. 

A sharp smack jerked him out of his trance, prompting Dowoon’s focus to alarmingly lift itself off Wonpil’s gleaming lips, so viciously bitten. Someone had just spiked and smoothly ended the game, but it wasn’t on Wonpil’s court. Dowoon took a glimpse at the other court, noticing Jaehyung hi-fiving another sturdy guy, quite tall and muscular. They swung their arms across each other’s shoulders and laughed at something indiscernible to the rest of the world. 

Dowoon’s blatant staring proved itself to be pretty articulate when Jaehyung caught his gaze and left his jaw hanging around a word he was about to speak to his he-man friend. Dowoon watched Jaehyung abruptly put an end to their moment of testosterone bonding and jog over to where he dwelled by himself. 

“Yo,” Jaehyung said, pushing up his glasses that had slid down. Dowoon could see his ignorance towards having his glasses smashed by a ball still remained pristine. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“I’m giving an uptight nerd a visit,” Dowoon replied, pursing his smile directly at Jaehyung who only rolled his eyes at him. Composing himself, he thought better of joking around someone’s whose protective fist wouldn’t hesitate to kiss Dowoon’s face. “Wonpil asked me to come.” 

“Huh,” Jaehyung scoffed, fixing both his hands on either side of his hips. He seemed to be trying to suppress how out of breath he actually was. “Why does he keep bringing pleasant surprises with him these times?”

Dowoon side-eyed him with heavy judgment. “I’m flattered, I guess.”

“I’m not giving you a compliment,” he chortled with sarcasm. “Just the fact that he asked you, and that you actually came. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“You’re not giving Wonpil a lot of chances.” 

“Can you blame me? Have you even _ seen _ him?” Jaehyung wildly gesticulated to Wonpil out on the court, receiving the ball with the kind of rigid grace someone possessed when unaccustomed to an action. Wonpil’s adversity at volleyball clearly showed. Dowoon arched a brow at Jaehyung, expecting elaboration. Jaehyung gladly complied, not without seizing the chance to give Dowoon a derogating glare. “A week ago, Wonpil would have fallen _ flat _on his face over that basic shit. Today, he actually laughed at Minseok’s bad jokes like it was the funniest thing ever. You think it’s that easy for Wonpil of all people to shift gears this drastically? He went from 1 to 6 real fast there.”

“Not sure whether you’re just underestimating his wacky optimism or doing one of your deriding numbers on him,” Dowoon wondered aloud. 

“No no no no,” he huffed. “You don’t understand. He did a 180 on us man. Or, well, just a 90 for now, but something’s definitely changed. Now it _ really _gets me wondering what your school is made of. It turned Wonpil stupid again.” Jaehyung fell into a contemplative silence just as Dowoon and his sore eyes took in the sight of Wonpil’s face cracking into a broad, teeth-baring smile upon nearly achieving a spike. 

“I think that’s just called getting over something,” Dowoon shrugged. 

“Are you kidding?” Jaehyung snorted. “The worst thing that could have happened to him happened. And after moving to a new town, too. Just, try to imagine your life after some stupid bully with no integrity showcased your bare ass to the whole school. And imagine the look on his mother’s face if she eventually…” he trailed off, cringing at what probably was the image of Wonpil’s mother’s horrified face his mind procured. Jaehyung waved his hand in hopes that Dowoon had figured it out. “Wonpil has already sacrificed his social life in this town for absolutely nothing. Last week was him mourning its death. Him getting over it would be him in Jeju, failing that damn competition but away from all this depressing shit. But today -- today’s just fucking _ weird _.” 

Indeed, Dowoon himself couldn’t agree more. “What’s the big deal? You have him back. I don’t see why you’re complaining.” 

There was a strange silence punctuated with screeching sneakers, slaps, resounding voices asking for a pass. Jaehyung poured his gaze down on Dowoon, before his tiny eyes exponentially widened. 

“Did you do this?” he exclaimed, pointing at him with an index. 

Dowoon turned to him with brows already scrunched, incredulous. “And are you accusing me of murder or something?” 

Just as Jaehyung was about to enlighten the bizarre verdict he started, Wonpil approached them with a happy bounce in his steps. Dowoon could see now why Jaehyung assumed it to be so unusual. 

“Hey Dowoon,” Wonpil chirped, reaching down to grab his bottle of water. Dowoon eyed the water being chugged down Wonpil’s bobbing throat. He released the rim of the bottle in great satisfaction as exhibited by a sigh, completely ignoring Jaehyung’s existence. In fact, he seemed to be virtually dismissing him. “I actually didn’t expect you here,” he smiled. 

“Second time I heard that today,” he complained in a lowered voice. Blissfully unconcerned, Wonpil was communicating something with Jaehyung through what seemed to be telepathy, or an extremely violent staring contest. The moment went on a confounding five seconds longer.

“Okay okay,” Jaehyung shot his hands up in surrender, folding to Wonpil’s unspoken demand. The latter looked thoroughly content with Jaehyung’s self-removal. “I’ll go back to playing.” With that, he threw a glance at Dowoon with the distinct suggestion to what he brought up earlier. 

Wonpil tugging at his shirt brought his attention back to him. Dowoon suppressed all human reflexes that could give away the genuine trepidation crawling under his skin, his dream still explicitly pasted at the back of his mind.

“Uhm,” Wonpil started with a lick of the lips. “You wanna go to the changing room with me? I have something to show you.”

Wonpil’s determined look of hope was too few and far between for him to turn down the request despite its strange nature. Dowoon stared straight at him and shrugged, allowing Wonpil to lead them towards the changing room. 

As expected, it was small and cramped and smelled of used water. A hint of javel somewhat assured its cleanliness. Maybe because it was awkward, or because Wonpil was occupied with rummaging his hands through the contents of his bag, but Dowoon took it upon himself to walk around the short expanse of the room in curt examination. 

The air was thick and uncomfortable. If Wonpil couldn’t find the words to speak, what chance did Dowoon stand? One lacked social entourage, the other excelled at social dissociation. They were the perfect pair for awkward silences. 

Dowoon had his hands in his pockets, thumbing his phone, as he inched around the showers for reasons that didn’t go beyond curtailing the stretching tension, at least for himself. Having no motive or passion for changing rooms, Dowoon turned around to investigate what was taking Wonpil so long to find what he had to retrieve. 

“Didn’t know you also sucked at finding your things,” he pointed out as he got closer to Wonpil until they stood face to face, adjacent to the lockers. Wonpil’s lip twitched into some sort of bashful grin, not that Dowoon’s conscious paid unwavering attention. Keeping his expression neutral, he fixedly looked at the flaring redness in Wonpil’s ears. 

“I think I forgot it,” Wonpil laughed breathlessly, twisting his fingers. 

Dowoon gave him a close-lipped smile in a lack of alternative answers. His brain wasn’t wired for this. If there was an appropriate thing to say in these moments of hesitation, Dowoon obviously wasn’t geared with any decent behavioral decorum. 

Silence still prevailed largely, with Wonpil’s eyes scintillating everywhere across Dowoon’s face, as though discovering him for the first time. He found himself hammered in place, actually feeling a magnetic force pulling him towards Wonpil. Outside, Anne-Marie’s _ Friends _was pumping in a subdued tone. 

Wonpil took the first step. They were nose to nose now, breathing in each other’s personal space. Dowoon had eyes, but they must have lost their one function or something, because the cold fingers that crept to his jaw sent unheralded jolts straight down his spine. That side of his face tingled helplessly, held subject to Wonpil’s digital affection. Dowoon’s gaze fell south, briefly captivated by Wonpil’s bottom lip being caught between his teeth. 

Dowoon couldn’t only feel Wonpil’s breath, a perfect mimicry of his dream, he could hear it without strain. It was shaky, as were his glimmering eyes intently holding his stare. In one smooth gesture, Wonpil leaned in and took Dowoon’s lips in his. 

In immediate response, Dowoon wrapped his arm around Wonpil’s back and pushed themselves together. Visibly relieved that Dowoon’s reaction wasn’t to protest and give him a piece of his mind, Wonpil brought his hands to his shoulders to balance himself, because two feet wasn’t sufficient support when it came to kissing. 

Dowoon himself was familiar with the weak knees, so he gave both him and Wonpil a break by gently shoving Wonpil against the lockers, pinning him in place. Their new position served as an opening for Dowoon to comfortably tilt his head and give Wonpil the kiss he deserved. 

His stomach was burning up fast, the debris of his dream was catching up with him as the heat in their kiss steadily rose in temperature. Feverish passion controlled their physical desires. Dowoon thought he would be the one kissing with lost ardor and desperation, but as it turned out, Wonpil was grabbing on to him for dear life, leaning in and quenching distance every time Dowoon tried pulling back for air. 

His heart was reduced to blisters of flame, a ticking time bomb. They both struggled to breathe into the kiss, conducted with fervor and the need for another person’s warmth. Wonpil was so small, so so small caged within his embrace, angling his face up so their lips could stay sealed. 

Not before long, tongue was introduced into the hot mix, courtesy of whoever cared. Crucially, though, they were making out in a damp changing room, rattling the lockers and probably drawing red marks on Wonpil’s back. The kiss needed an imprint of memory, after all, no matter what form. But Wonpil was enjoying it immensely, Dowoon could tell, what with his bold hands locking his neck so firmly that it didn’t allow for much movement. Not that Dowoon didn’t enjoy it as much. This was the longest he’d gone investing so much of his long missing emotions into a kiss. 

There was nothing Dowoon could think of in the moment that could stop them right then. It was certainly not Wonpil’s commanding hands preventing him from even sucking in a breath. What it wound up being, though, was Dowoon’s unwarranted hard-on brushing against Wonpil’s bare inner thigh. 

He jerked away in an instant, paralysed. Wonpil’s gaping mouth, rimmed with red, had to be a more exaggerated reflection of Dowoon’s face. If there was one thing he would never fail to foresee, or at the very least _ feel _, it was a full-blown erection. No man could. And if there was one thing Wonpil found most repulsive in the world right now, it was someone who placed him in the limelight of sensuality. 

Wonpil reached out, gently, slowly, which permitted Dowoon to avoid it without so much as moving. “Dowoon, I--”

“I have to go,” he hurried the words out of his mouth, zipping up his jacket as though it would conceal all traces of the situation under his pants. 

“Wait, don’t go--” 

Dowoon didn’t wait to hear the rest of Wonpil’s sentence. He was out the door, past Jaehyung’s questioning scrutiny, and promptly out of that goddamn place. Much to his convenience, boners were like another piece of clothing to the people of Magnolia district, but that didn’t mean Dowoon wore his as proudly as he scampered his way to the bus stop. Neither the festive mood nor the cold weather did anything to smooth the crinkles his hard-on left in his pants. 

Dowoon went home with his backpack covering his front, head thrown towards the sky in a silent plea to please let Wonpil slip in the shower and lose his memory. Or anything that involved harmless amnesia.

Maybe that would benefit him in more ways than one, although it was quite the morbid approach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> word of warning: next chapter will be extra short because it was supposed to be in this one, but ya girl is burnt out. idk if you can tell but my writing is giving up on me and i am struggling. badly. 
> 
> also a sidenote that i will have my username changed for reasons of privacy. 
> 
> in any case, if you liked this chapter, then it's all that matters to me, really !


	8. (8)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dowoon is naturally inexpressive, but he will learn to twist his habits in favor of mending a situation... and a certain person's heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i said this chapter would be short, but in the end i came up with something 
> 
> for once, i don't mind this chapter, i'm alright with how it turned out !
> 
> i do hope you enjoy reading this !

**Wonpil**

_ we should talk _

_ but not through text _

_ i’d rather see you in person _

_ is that alright? _

_ are You alright? _

_ i won’t ask for anything more _

**Dowoon**

_ sry got a shift today _

Dowoon had his text messages in his eyes’ hollow scope, though he intended to go nowhere beyond that simple response. Not just yet. If he were to act bona fide to his temptations, yesterday’s events would have panned out very differently. Perhaps he wouldn’t have found himself waking up on his own bed in the first place. Nonetheless, he decided to exit his messages and hold himself unaccountable for his misdeeds, at least for the moment. He opened another app, meaning to strip his mind off certain issues reminiscent of last night. 

Hyorin wasn’t wrong when she said Dowoon’s facebook was plagued with naked women. In the rare times he logged himself on, there seemed to be more of those than the last. Idly scrolling through his phone no longer held an appeal when there was nothing of interest to look at. 

Dowoon locked his phone and discarded it somewhere in the depths of his backpack. He peered down at his lunch unappetisingly gawking back at him, pleading to be eaten in all its stale glory. He sighed and pushed his tray forth before bringing his hands to carelessly rub at his eyes. Unbeknownst to him, Taeyung had perked up at his accidental invitation to steal his lunch. 

“You’re not gonna eat that?” he said, hope illuminating his otherwise tedious features. Dowoon silently sized him up, and shook his head. “Cool!” Taeyung cheered, displaying his feral hunger and poor nutritional judgment in one act of shoving all of Dowoon’s food in his own tray. 

“Yo, Woon,” Taeyung spoke through his obnoxious feasting. Dowoon unconsciously leaned away. “You think Hyorin’s a total bitch?”

“Flashing news,” he commented flatly. 

“No I’m serious though,” Taeyung adjusted himself in his seat and placed his elbows on the table. Dowoon often struggled to understand what kind of brainwork transpired in Taeyung’s head, but when he chose to be serious, Dowoon found that there was still a nuance of common sense and decency hidden in all the tomfoolery that was so typical of him. “She’s like, super manipulative. And horny. I don’t know if you can tell but she’s straight up horny my dude. I swear, everyone will make it out as though all men are disgusting pigs with outrageous libidos, but it’s not like some chicks aren’t like that too.” 

“What’d she do this time?” Dowoon asked. 

“Well, for one, she thinks Sungsoo and I never noticed how hard she’s trying to get you to sleep with her. Now that you’re thoroughly disgusted, she casually comes to me. It was a few days ago, she acted like we’ve always been close or something. I don’t even think she knows my last name. Man, having sex with her really isn’t on my bucket list.” Taeyung paused in favor of swallowing what was left in his mouth. “I mean, we all know you’re not a virgin but it doesn’t mean Hyorin should try this hard. Sungsoo’s desperate to get in her pants, too, so if she’s that horny, she can just settle for the next best thing, right?” 

Tongue feeling heavy in his mouth, Dowoon hummed his acknowledgement. “Sure.”

“And honestly, what’s she doing on her phone all the time?” Taeyung wondered. Dowoon wasn’t sure what kind of answer Taeyung expected, and even if he knew, there was no concern left in him to pursue this conversation. 

He was in the middle of stretching his sore limbs out, languidly scanning the cheap common room their school called ‘cafeteria,’ when his wandering gaze settled on Wonpil’s slender figure seated at a table in the distance. He was wrapped in a verbal exchange with a person Dowoon had never seen before. 

He would have been more than surprised to see he wasn’t the only person with conventional empathy towards a bully victim, but Wonpil’s facial expression begged to differ. It looked like Wonpil would give half a million reasons to extricate himself from that conversation. His demeanor consisted of frowning, squinting back with suspicion and hissing in retort to whatever witty things were said to him. Surely, he wasn’t very pleased with his company. 

Dowoon tore his attention away, momentarily consulting Taeyung’s pensive face stuffed with food, before he threw a glimpse back at where Wonpil was sitting. It seemed in the few seconds of his distraction, the apparently unpleasant conversation had already thinned out, and pretty uglily too as Wonpil’s special finger offered to the guy clearly validated. He gave his tray a distraught shake of the head after being left alone, aggressively stabbing his vegetables with a fork. 

Normally, Wonpil’s appearance which essentially relied on total dishevelment would fit fetchingly in the shabby environment of their cafeteria. And Dowoon wasn’t being mean, just objective. But perhaps his perception was beginning to shift a little towards a certain bias, and now seeing Wonpil in a completely different light, nothing was more at odds with the cafeteria’s backdrop than this silent sufferer of a schoolboy with the complexion of an angel. 

Dowoon didn’t lose the stare he had on the back of Wonpil’s head, and it served to damn him in the way that Wonpil turned just in time to openly catch his optical intrusion. Dowoon had a few seconds to witness sheer surprise flash on Wonpil’s face in the form of widened eyes and a lax jaw before they both looked away at the same time. 

_ Good job _ , his inner voice scolded him. There wasn’t much else left for him to do here if he decided against eating. Overruled by his flighty instincts and reddening ears, Dowoon lurched to his feet, vaguely informing Taeyung of his future whereabouts before heading out of the cafeteria with his backpack slung over one shoulder. 

\--

The thing about avoiding someone in high school was that it was completely pointless. The chances of running into the subject of your avoidance was way too perilous. Dowoon might be unsophisticated in his social ways, but he had a decent amount of integrity. He wasn’t one to unabashedly give the cold shoulder, even in times when it would probably do him a favor. Hyorin served as an obvious example. 

And if truth be told, the idea of circumventing every single opportunity of crossing paths with Wonpil sounded all too laborious, aside from it being a metaphorical slap to Wonpil’s face. Guilt would become Dowoon’s primary state of existence if he were to ever layer another coat of pain on top of Wonpil’s mountain of humiliation. 

_ God  _ it was so out of his character to mull over something to this exhaustive rigor. When Wonpil’s world collided with his on that night when he had asked for directions, it seemed to have created a lot of introspective turbulence up to this point. And Dowoon is practically forced to direct care and attention in the way he carried himself around Wonpil. Once upon a time, Dowoon assumed it had a lot to do with Wonpil’s feeble nature, so prepared to break at a feather’s touch, that he had to adjust himself to the circumstances. 

But now, it was like he unwittingly placed himself in a position where Wonpil’s antipathy, if given the reason to spurt, would readily hurt him and his innate detachment towards all and sundry. Wonpil’s view of him  _ mattered.  _ If not, Dowoon’s feet and every cerebral reflex which operated him wouldn’t have screamed to make a run for it so fast last night. 

His science teacher droned on about biochemistry, not that Dowoon assimilated anything she taught so far. Though he could use the knowledge, if only to entirely remodel the male gene responsible for sporadic erections. 

Dowoon pressed his forehead into the blistered wood of his table. His first thought was how urgently their school needed to renovate their archaic furniture, because keeping blistered tables in this day and age just reeked of laziness. His second thought was to relinquish all resistance and  _ snap out of it _ . Life was way too short for him to be brain-flexing over a perfectly organic reaction to such intimate communication of… whatever that night embroiled. Dowoon wasn’t sure whether it was the Korean vocabulary or his repertoire of feelings that was too limited for him to associate  _ the feeling  _ with the right word. 

He grunted internally. His head despairingly needed to cease the scatterbrain tendency. For a boy whose staunch reputation entailed an exterior of casual nonchalance, Dowoon sure didn’t expect himself to be so prone to social conundrums. Only when it involved Wonpil. Or maybe when it involved his genitals that decided on total independence of action. 

With a sigh of finality, he decided to go through with the embarrassing face-to-face confrontation. At least he’d get better sleep tonight than he did the last. 

\--

It was the piercing sound of the bell ringing that jolted Dowoon out of his slumber. Everyone went about their businesses, relieved of academic pressure. Some made astounding haste of exiting the classroom, resuming their day outside the premises of school. Some found new seats to catch up with their friends for the three hours during which they hadn’t seen each other. 

No matter how unusual his character might have been on this day, old habits of sleeping during classes didn’t seem to have escaped Dowoon. In fact, the turmoil in his head must have knocked him out better than any sleeping pill, because his limbs just refused to be picked up without challenging his strength. He could hardly remember the last time he slept through such a comatose nap.

He sighed, unfortunately not having forgotten about the things ahead of him waiting to be done. If there was such a thing as sleeping into oblivion, Dowoon hoped he had just woken up from it. Nonetheless, he shouldn’t pin his hopes on make-believe solutions and finally come up against the reality that was about to swallow him. He chewed the thought as he lifted his head, immediately burrowing it in his hands and making sure his eyes were stiffly pressed in.  _ Maybe it won’t be so bad,  _ he comforted himself.

A minute’s hesitation held the power of changing his decision in nothing flat, so Dowoon gathered himself to take his leave before he wound up anywhere else but in front of Wonpil, ashamedly defending his impromptu boner back in the changing room. 

The corridor was swarmed when he got out. He stopped in his tracks, in complete disbelief with his luck. He really didn’t need a crowd assisting to his confrontation, especially when there was a great danger of things being taken out of their context. He shook his head, unsure why such impertinent worries still plagued his mind when he’d fixedly decided to throw all fucks out the window. Maybe a nice steady punch would screw his head on straight again. 

He brushed past the throng of people, not stopping for anything anymore. Quickly thinking of places to find Wonpil, he perused his surroundings in hopes of identifying the first and last person he wanted to see at once. 

Dowoon’s heart launched into his throat once his first milestone was achieved: his gaze found Wonpil standing by his opened locker, snaring a pink folder between his hands. His tiny fingers were working on getting dried gum off his belongings. The activity alone scrunched his face into somber dedication, one that was unfittingly endearing in a way that only Wonpil could manage. If there was any shred of drowsiness left in his nap’s wake, it was all washed away in a matter of seconds with the cold awareness of his bargain. 

Dowoon looked thoughtlessly ahead of himself in deep contemplation. What the hell was he doing, rooted in his spot like an idiot? 

Snapping out of it, he reasoned that he didn’t come all the way here weathering through his atypical uneasiness for naught. He took a first step forth, pausing a little, and before he knew it, he was determinedly walking up to Wonpil. 

“Hey,” he said. Thankfully, his voice was a flattering baritone which tended to stick out. At least he only needed one attempt to obtain Wonpil’s unprepared attention. It was something to which he responded very un-Dowoon-like too, with a comforting, twitchy smile. 

Crossed eyes observed him carefully. “Oh, Dowoon,” his soft voice betrayed his surprise. His face went from disclosing fluster to confusion. His hand emerged, ambiguously gesturing to Dowoon. “I thought you had a shift?”

“About yesterday,” he cut in impatiently, tired of glossing over conversational manners. This was until he suddenly realised that he essentially had nothing to say, voice dead in the face of terror and mortification. Never had he been forced into such predicament. How could he know the conventional approach to this? 

Wonpil blinked at him, hands white from gripping his folder, lips pressed together as though he was bracing himself for, or against, a particular excuse. 

Standing in front of Wonpil promptly reminded him of past events involving lip-locking fever, but also bare thighs, hard-ons and distinct running away. Dowoon wished awkward wouldn’t be just a demeaning euphemism to describe the growing tension. 

Someone bumped into his back, pulling him out of his thoughts. His gaze refocused on Wonpil, just then noticing their scarce but significant height difference.

Dowoon sighed half of his soul out through his nose and regained his composure. “About yesterday,” he repeated. “I don’t want you to misunderstand.” 

That had to be the lamest, most pathetic attempt at redemption of the decade. Wonpil frowned as he computed Dowoon’s statement, and only when it had properly dawned on him, his features loosened with what Dowoon frightfully hoped wasn’t disappointment. 

“Oh,” he waved a limp hand, averting eye-contact. “It’s nothing, believe me. I can take it casually, if that’s what you want.”

“No Wonpil, it’s not that,” he licked his lips. His head threatened to explode. “I just didn’t want to leave the wrong impression.”

He expected Wonpil to frown again, but was instead met with a more hopeful air alleviating the previous look on his face. “What do you mean?”

Dowoon looked to his left, then to his right, and made a face. “Can we talk somewhere more… private?” He pointed to the crowd.

There was a blank that dragged on, their ears filled with incoherent teenage talk in the corridor. To Dowoon though, it was precariously silent, as though a wrong move would push everything to a decisive collapse, and Wonpil would go back to shunning everyone and their mothers. 

Wonpil was rummaging through his locker, a sight too achingly familiar, and Dowoon cursed his inability to find things. That handicap was what led him to where he currently was to begin with, floundering in his effort to set things straight. To Wonpil’s credit, he could use the time to envisage their near-future plan, and whatever was comfortable to him. 

“I don’t mean to invade your privacy but… can we go to your place?” he asked, visibly uncertain, but also visibly bothered by something. “To discuss this, I mean.” Dowoon must have worn a foul reaction on his face, because Wonpil instantly reconsidered his request. “Oh-- oh. I forgot you had a shift. It’s okay. We can uh--”

“We can go to my house,” Dowoon blurted out, nodding along. “It’s… practically empty,” he explained, imagining his mom to be bound to her bed as her usual schedule had programmed. 

Wonpil smiled genuinely, reassuring Dowoon of the return of his sunny disposition. “Okay. Let me grab my things real quick.” 

As it turned out, Wonpil’s idea of  _ real quick  _ was diametrical to Dowoon’s, or anyone with a normal sense of time, really. It took them at least half an hour before they narrowly caught a bus to where Dowoon lived. 

Thus began the smothering bus ride and short-lived walk to Dowoon’s house, wherein Wonpil held his head down the whole time and Dowoon’s wonderful socialising talent dug itself an early grave. By the time they made it to Dowoon’s home garden, Dowoon had come to terms with the awkwardness. It was a natural part of any healthy imbroglio in the same way that humans had legs. What he dreaded, though, was the actual talk that was edging closer with every step, at which point Dowoon would have to begrudgingly dismiss his arousal as an accident in broad daylight. 

Upon opening his door, Wonpil quietly waiting behind his back, Dowoon was ready to head straight to his room, tucked away from the possibility of his mom’s encroachment. But that proved to be a faraway hope, too, as was everything he had counted on so far in this long, long day. 

To his surprise, more than just one head whirled around at his arrival, all of which occupied the space of his living room. Dowoon was treated to a rather welcoming set of eyes, as the three women erupted in giggles with hands shooting to cover their tinted lips. One of those women was his mom, showered, dressed and discernibly taken care of, face lathed with a thin glaze of makeup done by a pair of obviously unpractised hands. 

“Dowoon!” she called with unfamiliar excitement, holding her arms up. Dowoon looked back at her and the other two unrecognisable faces in ghastly fascination. Wonpil bumped into his back, and Dowoon knew he immediately tensed up at the sight. 

“Hi mom,” he muttered petulantly, ushering Wonpil inside and closing the door behind them. He threw a glance at a noticeably unnerved Wonpil, relating a  _ trust me  _ to him through an unflinching gaze. When he looked back, the warm faces were replaced with stiff, expressionless smiles. 

“Dowoon,” his mom’s eyes darted back and forth between him and Wonpil and the little space between them. “I’d like you to meet Yuri.” Her tone was a sugar-coated peppy, but the faint impression of a scowl concealed by her pretense spoke of her true humour. 

_ Yuri  _ and the woman beside her who he assumed to be her mom both greeted him with artificial mirth, the two of them gracefully batting their eyes at him. Dowoon didn’t have to think twice to know who they were, what kind of status dictated their will to live, and the purpose which brought them to sit on his home’s sofa in the company of his mom. He could still sense Wonpil frigidly standing next to his shoulder, terribly out-of-place. 

“My sincerest apologies,” Dowoon said all but sincerely, deciding to join their game and smile charmingly at Yuri. “I’m afraid I’ll have to join you for dinner instead. I have a test tomorrow, and my friend here,” Dowoon slithered his arm around Wonpil’s tense shoulders, “is going to help me study.” Wonpil plucked the courage to bow, though he did not go all the way down to where his mom’s strict expectations would have appreciated. In effect, his mom’s deceitful imitation of glee crumbled a little. 

“Oh, what a good, studious boy you have Mrs. Yoon!” Yuri’s mom clasped her manicured hands together, haggard eyes kindled with enchantment. Yuri, a long-legged pale woman with long, glistening hair Dowoon could bet was shortly above her twenties, sized him up in marvel. “Any woman would be lucky to have him,” she nudged at Yuri, not even trying to hide the blatant insinuation.

“I could only imagine so, Mrs. Kim,” his mom replied, fixing Wonpil with a look of contempt. “Your daughter is also quite the--”

“Well,” he disrupted his mother before things would catch an uglier edge, tugging several times at the sleeve of Wonpil’s coat. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt you further. Please do excuse me.” He finished his sentence with a formal bow, drawing Wonpil to emulate him, before drifting past the common area to his bedroom. Wonpil was a hot step behind him, burning with the need to vanish from their view. Dowoon could only guess as much. 

It wasn’t until after he shut his room’s door that Dowoon let out a sigh. When he turned around, freeing himself from his jacket, Wonpil seemed worlds away from here as he inspected Dowoon’s room, that same lost facade from the moment they met stabbed into his gaze. He had his hands bunched in front of him, holding onto his pink tote bag. 

In a few strides, Dowoon was sat atop his unmade bed, tossing his books and papers down the floor to make space. Exasperated, he sank into the sheets, flicking a glance at Wonpil. Only the side of his face was revealed, the rest of him turned to the window with meticulous attention. He was taking in the well-heeled quality of his neighbourhood marked with neat, perfectly paralleled pavements. Dowoon waited with baited breath for something he struggled to anticipate. 

Not without facing Dowoon, Wonpil spoke quietly, “You’re rich.” 

“My parents are,” he corrected, unswayed by the bluntness. He trailed his eyes along Wonpil’s frail nape emerging from the soft-looking yet crazy tuft of hair. His roots had slightly grown back, clashing against the scatteredly bleached hair. 

“Listen,” Wonpil swung himself around, wan in the face, borrowing the temperament of an ill patient. “If I’d known about the Yuri thing, I would have never--”

“Can we not talk about that?” Dowoon winced. “I didn’t know either. But that’s not what we’re here for.” 

Wonpil’s queasy air seemed to have exacerbated into the look one often gave their toilet bowl after having retched. “Right,” he mumbled, reluctantly settling on the edge of Dowoon’s bed. “You wanted to say something.” 

They stared at each other in utter silence, each beseechingly waiting for the other to speak. But there was something greater than innocuous discomfort hovering in the air. It was something thick but silky, dense with heart-thumping excitement, a mutual understanding. Wonpil squirmed where he was seated, the bed helplessly creaking with the gentle maneuver. Dowoon swallowed thickly. 

Fed up with the tip-toeing, Dowoon cleared his throat and propped himself on his elbow. Wonpil watched him in silence. “I don’t think I can say it,” he proposed. 

Dowoon knew Wonpil was going to open his mouth to retort something, but swiftly stopped him with a hand on his wrist. His jaw wobbled a bit in an unsuccessful intention to speak, so he mutedly motioned to his bed instead. Actions always seemed to speak louder than words, after all.

Thankfully, Wonpil apprehended the suggestion with a shadow of contentment, as it appeared, and spread himself vertically on Dowoon’s bed beside him. Dowoon reached down for the jacket that he stripped himself off earlier and searched through the pockets, soon retrieving a pair of earphones. He untangled it, connected it to his phone and split it in half, one of which he offered to Wonpil with a feeble, apologetic smile. It took Wonpil a few seconds of staring into Dowoon’s eyes before he accepted the offer, placing one side of the earphones in his ear. 

Quite self-conscious, Dowoon reconciled to a safe option and played Doja Cat’s  _ Say So. _ They laid side-by-side, quietly paralysed into listening to the woman sing about steamy sex. 

Halfway into the song, Wonpil breathed a sigh. “You want me to say so…?” he asked weakly, brows heavy with question. 

“I…” Dowoon floundered. “I didn’t intend anything with the music. Just to help you relax.”

Wonpil didn’t respond for a few seconds, and that might be the reason why when he shifted to his side, it caught Dowoon unguarded to come face-to-face with Wonpil’s softened, comforted smirk. “You’re the one who needs to say so,” he mused. Dowoon examined his smug face, lips parted. Wonpil assumed a pensive air, “if you want it, just say so.” 

“Want what?” he breathed. 

“Well, why don’t you say so?” Wonpil taunted. 

Dowoon held himself up with one elbow, prompting Wonpil to lie back down on his back, and drew his face closer to him until it was hovering above the smaller boy. The breath that came out of his nose rattled Wonpil’s bangs. Maneuvering with his unoccupied arm, Dowoon dragged a finger all the way to Wonpil’s slender neck. The latter seemed to dissolve at the all-consuming attention. 

Dowoon teased Wonpil’s sideburn with the finger, swiping his bang to the side and flattened his hand on the side of his face. 

“I’ll show you instead,” he sighed. Wonpil looked at him in awe, and Dowoon wished he could see the rest of his emotions, but he had already leaned down to kiss him. Involuntarily, he caught the breath of surprise that eluded Wonpil. 

Eyes shut, Dowoon had to rely on his remaining senses to track Wonpil’s movements. He felt hands crawling up the length of his chest, as they came to grip the back of his neck. Wet lips glided together, giving rise to even wetter sounds, separating only for vital breaths. They took turns tilting heads, changing the angle, slipping tongues in and out. Subdued percussion from Doja Cat’s song still played in their ears, only serving as scorching incitement. 

This was his answer. This was the thing which he faltered to share with Wonpil, the thing which turned the gears in his head so unkindly all day today. He felt indescribably  _ good  _ with Wonpil, with his miserable grimaces, with his unabashed laughter, with being the element changeful of his moods. It filled him with vehemence when he had Wonpil’s soft, nibbling lips between his in a way that was only fitting, given how long the gaping hole in his chest had been yearning for affection. 

As ashamed he was to be admitting it, even to himself, he had been absolutely spellbound the moment his eyes first discovered that damning video. Without a doubt, that made him the flawless paragon of a depraved, low-life degenerate, something with which he’d been able to dissociate himself. In the end, he had more in common with Sungsoo than he’d like to accept. 

But then, Wonpil had chosen him of all people to rely upon, in a small way, and Dowoon could only hold onto his self-control for so long. Actually, he could commend his resilient efforts of evasion for the while that it lasted, until Wonpil exhibited the universal innuendos of flirtation, no matter how subtle. It broke him, very obviously. 

So he damn right used his mouth to show what he wanted Wonpil to know, just without the words his mind lacked the flexibility to conceive. All that he wanted to convey was wrapped in one kiss that articulated much more than he ever could vocally. At the very least, he trusted Wonpil to understand. 

Arm turning sore, Dowoon released Wonpil’s lips with regret. They breathlessly stared at each other, shrouded in their own fashion of absentmindedness. The song tapered to an end, urging him to remove the earphones and abandon them on the unused side of his bed. Wonpil had stars in his eyes, intensely locking gaze with him. 

“Whoever you kissed before me must be so sad now,” he chuckled. Too happy to frown, Dowoon settled for a dip of his head.

“What do you mean?” 

Wonpil seemed like he could barely stay still. He skated his hands along Dowoon’s arm, patting his cheek, gently tugging his hair, caressing their way down his back. “You’re a very good kisser,” he emphasised, left giddy by the kiss. 

Dowoon arched a brow. “Don’t give me too much credit. I wasn’t the only one kissing.” 

Wonpil bit his lip, suffering in his inability to contain himself. One swift motion allowed him to push Dowoon into the sheets before climbing on top of him. The air in Dowoon’s lungs abruptly vanished with the swing. Wonpil dropped his weight on Dowoon’s lower stomach and pinned his hands on either side of his face, leaving no space for him to escape if he wanted to. 

“Has anyone ever told you how irresistible you are?” Wonpil despaired. 

At a loss for words, Dowoon honestly tried his hardest to respond. Ironically, those were the words that wouldn’t stop tearing at his chest, aching to be made known. But in reality, he knew he would be putting his foot in his mouth if he were to sweet talk. His speech impairment already made it challenging enough, but it held the peril of objectifying him, especially when he was practically remembered as a pornstar by the whole school, well against his will. 

“Not until you, I guess,” he replied. Where he lacked in vocal expression, Dowoon strived to make up for with holding Wonpil by his waist, genuinely searching his eyes. By the looks of it, Wonpil recognised Dowoon’s rather demure character, and couldn’t incriminate a man of few words for silently sitting through compliments to which he struggled with reciprocating. 

Dowoon leaned forth and placed a kiss on Wonpil’s lips instead. Wonpil’s smile left a mnemonic imprint on his lips when they parted. 

After several buttons undone and a couple hickeys sucked, they were back to lying down side-by-side, hands laced. A different kind of silence hung about the air. Wonpil turned to him, and their proximity gave way for him to lean a temple on Dowoon’s shoulder. 

“What did you mean when you said you didn’t want to leave the wrong impression?” he asked, but his eyes were hooded, fixated on the Mariah Carrey poster and the bad patchwork Dowoon had done to the back of his door. 

“My god, you remembered that?” he huffed. He was hoping all clarification would be cleared out. After all, they had yet to discuss his arousal misadventures in the changing room. 

“Well, I  _ did  _ ask.”

Dowoon thought for a moment, and when he was confident with his words, he sighed in preparation. “In everyone’s eyes, your reputation and value is purely pornographic, you know that right?” 

Wonpil shrugged. “I thought that didn’t matter to you.”

“It doesn’t,” Dowoon quickly assured. “I was afraid you’d see me that way, actually.”

“What way?” Wonpil’s voice possessed the brim of drowsiness, so maybe that was Dowoon’s safety net when he would  _ finally  _ strangle himself with his foot. 

“You’re making it difficult for me y’know,” he gruffly complained.

“Get used to it,” Wonpil riposted with a dry chuckle. “Just tell me. I’m the last person to judge.”

Dowoon waited a moment, collecting his thoughts. He didn’t quite understand the committal to delicate words around Wonpil, but he often found himself being more careful with his choice of words than he ordinarily was. “I thought if anyone was kissing you and then got hard, they’d only want to get in your pants, y’know?” he tried. 

“What possibly led you to that conclusion…?” Wonpil mumbled into the sheets. 

Dowoon sighed and rubbed his face with his free hand. “Because of that footage of you. Having sex.”

“Oh,” Wonpil said quietly.

“I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, that I was kissing you and getting aroused because I only see you as that, a guy approachable enough to fuck. Y’know, ‘cause you’re vulnerable and all. I was privy to… almost all of it.”

Wonpil lifted himself up and flipped to his stomach, which granted easier access for him to pin his chin on Dowoon’s chest along with his needling hands. He slipped a leg between Dowoon’s and lined their pelvis together. “You don’t kiss just anybody, I know that,” he purred. “I was aroused too, back there. But unlike you, I was looking forward to it.”

Dowoon looked at him, ignoring the twitch in his pants. “You didn’t think it was too soon?”

“Not everything has to be done by the book. There’s no ‘too soon’ if you want it.”

His heart fluttered. “You wanted it?”

“I…” Wonpil hesitated, breaking the stare he had on Dowoon. He hummed, eyes returning to inspecting his face. “You may not know this but, I’ve had my eyes on you for a while now...” he explained, clearly wary of Dowoon’s reaction. In an attempt to console Wonpil and show him he wasn’t always branded with robotic tact, Dowoon swathed his arms around his middle, making sure to press a thumb down the dip of his bony hips. He let Wonpil continue, “I thought this whole… sextape fiasco would have decidedly stomped any chances I had with you. And honestly, that was four fucking years ago, it’s not like I’m traumatised. I  _ want  _ sex.” 

“But not with someone who would take advantage of you,” Dowoon seriously declared, resting his palm on Wonpil’s lower back. Heat overflowed his groin, but to showcase his carnal desires right now would be as poorly-timed as any.

“I’d know that,” Wonpil separated the unbuttoned collar of Dowoon’s shirt and sank a finger in one of the hickeys he’d smirched earlier. “If you were that depraved, you wouldn’t have waited a day longer to listen to the stories about my bruised knees and my homophobic mother. You would have locked us together in the janitor’s room and gotten it over with. And then you’d never talk to me again.” Wonpil just had no idea how truly depraved Dowoon could get. 

“Is this made up, or…?” Dowoon wondered with a frown, carding his fingers through Wonpil’s hair. An unbothered chuckle met his remark, and then Wonpil shook his head as though Dowoon just blurted out utter stupidity.

“You’re better than that,” his voice was smooth with delight,  _ proud _ . Soon after, Wonpil positioned his cheek flat on Dowoon’s chest, lining his hands along his ribs. 

It took a moment for Dowoon to fully absorb their divulgences, picking at every excruciating detail. So Wonpil caught an interest long before Dowoon noticed. He felt like a total letdown for not keeping an eye out, and for being so bad at expressing the reciprocation Wonpil was probably longing for. He tightened his arms around Wonpil’s scrawny body, shutting his eyes and pressing his lips to the crown of his head. 

“I should get going, or your mom’s gonna freak out,” Wonpil sighed, not sounding rushed at all. Dowoon reluctantly loosened his hold and allowed Wonpil to sit up straight. They scooted to the edge of his bed and sat there, both refusing to move. 

His neutral face really was a curse, because Wonpil felt compelled to cup his neck to bring a beacon of emotion out of him. They leaned in and kissed several times, burning under the obligation to keep it short before it had a chance to escalate. When they parted, Wonpil’s lips were donned with a faint ring of redness, something which made Dowoon’s heart pulsate. 

“See you,” Wonpil whispered, as though an octave higher would shatter the moment. Dowoon nodded, dipping his hands into his pockets. Wonpil got up to grab his coat and his pink tote bag before heading to the door. His hand was on the knob when he turned around, throwing one last smile at Dowoon. In a few seconds, he was gone. 

Dowoon fell back on his bed, tossing his arm over his eyes. A smile touched his lips, and he bit it vindictively. Just as swiftly as Wonpil disappeared into the hallway, the thought of tonight’s dinner slipped into his head and bereaved him of the blooming smile he had upon his face. He sighed, sitting up and dusting himself off. 

If today was a long day, tonight was bound to be even longer. He had to weather through a threat from his parents under the form of a forgettable woman he was forced to fall in love with for the sake of money. Not that Dowoon ever could, even if they were the two people left on earth. 

Or perhaps, the replica of his nightmare was about to come true, and his parents actually intended for their families’ conciliation to be carried out. 

Either way, the night didn’t promise much else beyond a headache. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's so much more to write, but i think we're at least around the middle of the story now. again, motivation is a tricky thing lmao... i feel like there's something off with the story though, i keep changing it and now i can't quite keep track anymore. if i'm missing something, do let me know!
> 
> anyway, we're getting closer to the truth now! 
> 
> thanks for reading!


	9. (9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dowoon doesn't know yet, but he learns something of great importance. And then Wonpil decides he is nice enough for a favour, but not just any kind...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i stan quite a lot of bands, and tbh Day6 is so special in the way that their stage roles are all backwards lol i've never seen a bassist so mobile and a headbanging pianist, a drummer who closes his eyes and a lead vocalist/guitarist standing so still haha, i find it so endearing. in the end, Jae might be the most normal one out of the bunch. 
> 
> anyway, somewhat long chapter ahead, i hope you enjoy !

The grey, dismal weather made everything look like it stepped out of a post-apocalyptic movie. Only the glacial wind swept through the front court of their school, Dowoon being the only breathing thing that walked it. Nobody cared to stay outside during the apogee of winter when the classrooms were equipped with heaters. The last bell of school should have dismissed everyone home by this point, if they were anything like Dowoon, but clearly, the unwillingness to face their town’s baneful winter overrode their will to return home. 

Dowoon balled his fists in his pockets, sticking his nose further into his scarf. It hardly warmed him, but it at least blocked out the rising, damp breeze blowing directly into his face. It was the only indicatory prelude to another icy rainstorm, something else he absolutely didn’t look forward to. For now, he crossed over to the other side of the court until he reached the concrete stairs. 

Even in the middle of a rather busy week, the convenience store needed an emergency clerk as the other singular employee that wasn’t Dowoon called in sick, which was really the stereotypical excuse for playing Call of Duty on the couch with a fluffy blanket because the cold weather would never allow for a proper shower, Dowoon knew. Not that he minded, it was a good bidding for extra cash, and his habits of skipping classes obviously wouldn’t be the thing that came between him and money. 

Still, he had a reason to come back. 

When Dowoon made it to the corridor, the first and only face that welcomed his unwarranted presence was his year’s president. Their paths crossed, their eyes met, and the bigger man’s face contorted around a scowl. Was he still hung up over that pink liquid incident? Dowoon wouldn’t have imagined so with the way he vented his humiliation square into Dowoon’s face, but he could be wrong.

Unintimidated, Dowoon blankly stared back as he kept to his tracks, but even that average minding-my-own-business disposition surely couldn’t escape some sort of adversity. The president took it upon himself to veer his direction to collide shoulders with Dowoon, perhaps to establish his omen of doom or something. Once the sight of him disappeared behind his back, Dowoon peered over himself, engaging into one last stare off before the president snorted and went back to unobtrusively exiting their school. 

No longer than five seconds, the nonsensical outcome fell off Dowoon’s head as he arrived in front of a classroom, not waiting to slide the wooden door open. He was disappointed to be greeted with a half-filled room, but that quickly got replaced with irritation when he spotted Wonpil mopping the floor at the back of the classroom, cornered in his own world of… mopping floors, it seemed. Loosening his scarf, he marched past the sets of tables and loitering classmates. Shortly, he was standing behind Wonpil. Earphones were tucked into his ears. 

Dowoon placed a hand on Wonpil’s shoulder and slid it down his back. Under no circumstances would he have foreseen the shove that the gesture earned him, but then Wonpil ripped one of his earphones out and spluttered apologetically. 

“Woah there,” he held his hands up. Wonpil caught one of his wrists, attempting to say something and surreptitiously looking around the classroom. “I think you should really work on the way you greet people. We can’t all be at the mercy of your survival instincts here.”

“Sorry, didn’t think it was you,” he nervously chuckled as he let go of Dowoon. Deceiving Dowoon’s expectations, Wonpil simply returned to mopping the floor, which judging by the gloss coating its surface, really didn’t need further mopping. 

“Who did you think it was?” 

“Nobody,” he vaguely answered, setting his mop up straight and leaning on it. “You disappeared all afternoon. I was starting to think you went back to avoiding me, so don’t blame me if you turned out to be a complete surprise.” Wonpil treated him to a blatant once-over, to which Dowoon’s skin tingled against his will. “Though not an unpleasant one.”

Dowoon chose not to react as he authentically would and sighed alongside a roll of the eyes. “You know what you and my dad have in common?” he crossed his arms.

“What?” Wonpil asked despite the face he made which undoubtedly betrayed his incredulity at Dowoon comparing him to his dad. 

“You don’t answer your calls,” he chastised meekly, not resisting his urge to touch Wonpil’s hair. Before his hand had a chance to feel the bleached strands, Wonpil reclined away from his attempt and gave him a desolate pat on his right shoulder blade like they were best bros disgusted by same-sex skinship. Dowoon frowned but couldn’t properly address the underlying issue as Wonpil quite literally deflected his questioning gaze and reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. His bangs covered his eyes as he inspected it. 

“Oh, right,” he turned back to beam at Dowoon apologetically. “I usually have it on mute, so I didn’t hear it.” 

“Really reminds you to unmute my call, then,” Dowoon said, suspiciously regarding Wonpil’s strange fascination with the art of floor-mopping today. When Wonpil failed to respond, apparently preferring to scrub an already clean hardwood, he snatched the stick from him and seized it under his armpit. Wonpil’s jaw fell and he clasped his hands on his hips. 

“Hey, unless you want me to end up with another split lip, I advise you to give that back to me,” Wonpil snarled, pointing an accusatory index to Dowoon’s face. 

“I don’t want you to end up with anything, I want you to just look at me for longer than three seconds without twitching.” Dowoon yanked himself back with the mop pinned to his side when Wonpil thought he could beat his speed reflex by casually trying to grab the stick. 

“Ok, fine,” he huffed, unblinkingly glaring at Dowoon for exactly three seconds before throwing his arms in the air. “Are you happy now?”

“No,” Dowoon clicked his tongue and relinquished the hold he had on the mop in favor of gathering Wonpil by the waist. The latter was only halfway in his embrace when his hand shot up to press into Dowoon’s chest, effectively putting modest distance between them. 

“Dowoon,” he mumbled, a look of panic overshadowing his face. “Please, not in here.” His eyes darted towards the rest of the class, motioning to the possible attention their proximity might attract. Dowoon’s head followed his gaze, catching some girls openly gawking at them and concealing their blissful giggles behind their hands at being found out. 

“I don’t care what people think,” he said, meaning the words wholeheartedly. That didn’t seem to have convinced Wonpil, but it was even better shown when he completely withdrew from Dowoon and fastened his eyes to the floor. 

“I care,” he said, reclaiming the mop and shyly glancing at him. 

“Just yesterday you were telling me how irresistible I was.” Dowoon couldn’t believe how much could change in a night, apparently. “And now you’re acting like I repulse you or something.”

“You have  _ no  _ clue how badly I wanted to be with you today, I was looking everywhere for you,” he assured, making Dowoon reel his head back in surprise. That was until Wonpil’s face morphed into something between disappointment and longing. “But associating with me is bad news. It’s pure gossip material. And even if you don’t care about that, I’d hate to be the one to drag you into all this.” 

“You’re dragging me into nothing at all, I’m willingly putting myself in this, if you haven’t yet noticed.”

“It’s the same,” Wonpil irrationally reasoned, frowning at him. Dowoon found he couldn’t stand being at the receiving end of that kind of expression. Wonpil must have sensed the foul mood that was swelling in him because he stepped forth and grabbed his hand, making sure their intimate touch was covert enough for their peers’ nosy rubbernecking. “If there’s one thing I don’t want you to be part of in my life, it’s this. It’s everything that has to do with that video or the consequences or the bullying. Just, pretend it doesn’t exist, stop thinking about it. Heaven forbid you even picture it if we were to ever… you know.” Wonpil screwed up his face and chuckled with embarrassment. Dowoon swept a thumb across Wonpil’s knuckles, somewhat amused. “I’m not the frail person you think I am. But it’s disconcerting that you give  _ it _ so much thought when you’re around me. Just do and say whatever you want, from here onforward, I’m not one of the guys in that footage anymore, ok?” 

Dowoon slowly blinked down at Wonpil, pursing his lips and nodding. Truly, he understood, and he reassured Wonpil of that with a squeeze to his hand. It pained him to be acquiescing to this sort of arrangement, but really, he recognised it was for the best. 

“Ok,” he agreed, grudgingly giving Wonpil his hand back. “I have to get going now,” he announced, peering out the window of their darkening classroom. “Before it starts raining.”

“What? Where are you going?” Wonpil whined. “What’s the point of coming all the way here if you were just gonna leave anyway?”

Dowoon gently smiled, wishing he could huddle Wonpil in his arms and kiss his inviting lips. “I have to go to cram school, ‘cause dinner last night wasn’t too great.” 

“I can’t make the connection,” Wonpil leveled him with a disgruntled look, displeased that Dowoon felt compelled to leave as soon as he arrived. 

He sighed. “We can talk about that later. If I stay longer, I’ll only make it for the last five minutes of the tutoring lesson.”

Wonpil’s shoulders defeatedly slumped. “Fine, fine.” 

They shared a moment of utter desperation, flicking eyes and licking lips and stiffly fighting the ache for a more satisfying goodbye. Perhaps one that involved tongue and frantic hands, Dowoon wouldn’t be complaining. 

“Ok, bye,” Dowoon whispered, already breaking the ground rules by briefly brushing Wonpil’s bangs. He didn’t wait for a reply before he was turning away and heading for the door. Taking in the full view of the classroom, he noticed some heads subtly angled in his general direction, muttering things under their breath. At the very back, Wonpil stood where Dowoon had left him, both hands enclosed around the end of the mop, his chin propped on them. A smile carved itself into his lips, and Dowoon couldn’t help but mirror it. 

He knew lingering would make it harder for him to leave, so Dowoon slid the door open and got out of the classroom, not looking back. 

\--

Yuri undeniably was a beautiful woman. With her dazzling white skin, plump lips, two double-lidded eyes and a perfect V-shape face, she was what 98% of the South Korean population called stunning. The lack of exposure to the real world left her to live in a money-framed fantasy, a place where trouble would never reach even the tip of her toes. But it wasn’t her fault. Her grandiloquent parents were mostly responsible for that. 

She held the glaze of a girl who unfortunately reflected the blunt edges of her upbringing. A timid, thin woman who had her table manners down to a T, spoke only when spoken to (and when she did it was with remarkably pretentious grace) like any psychologically battered and silenced woman. She was likely designed to be this way, domestic and ultimately an object put for show, created for a lucrative purpose rather than out of love in the same way that people built cars, Dowoon would know. 

In a way, Dowoon pitied her. It was anyone’s guess what kind of thoughts her little mind knew to dwell on, but Dowoon could certainly tell she enjoyed her lifestyle and buying her way into or out of everything, like her parents had taught her, undoubtedly. 

As he’d found out during dinner, Yuri was 22, but behaved with the immaturity of a girl half her age. The pearl necklace dangling off her collarbones and the intricate gold jewelries on her wrists suited her age, helped her baby face look it, but the bright prospect of pink ribbons and fluffy, lacy dresses delighted her like dolls to a 9 year-old. 

Overall, it wasn’t like Dowoon cared. She could be the way she happily wanted, he sure as hell would’ve turned out the same if his mom hadn’t cheated on his dad. But as a matter of fact, he  _ did  _ care, was forced to, because she was the woman his parents cherry picked for him to marry. Nevermind their age, or the fact that Dowoon still had quite a way until he graduated high school. None of that mattered when the saving grace of their whatever business sat at their dining table, batting her dolled up eyes at their son. 

In reality, as much as he pitied himself for still loving his family, he felt bad for her too. She could do a lot better than become the submissive wife silently sitting beside him during business gatherings, a pretty ornament to make Dowoon’s bicth face seem less dull, lifelessly nodding and smiling and laughing at people’s unfunny one-liners. He wondered if she ever dreamed of tearing herself out of that picture, because it was bound to happen to her someday. Maybe she realised it, maybe she didn’t, but Dowoon himself had other plans he wanted to carry out. 

“Oh, look who finally turned up,” an unpleasantly familiar voice cut in before Dowoon’s brain could time travel back to last night’s stodgy dinner. He snapped his neck towards the voice that talked to him, realising he was in fact sitting in the cramped room of the collective tutor lesson. Hyorin’s face swiftly came into view, disappointing. Dowoon gave her an exasperated look, as well as the empty seat next to him. 

He didn’t answer, instead choosing to bury his face into his arms and curse his luck. For  _ once  _ that he made it to the tutoring class before the scheduled time, let alone be present at all, there had to be one free space beside him and Hyorin in the same room. 

“Haven’t seen you in quite a while here,” she said, further worsening his luck by settling down next to him. “Did you miss me too much?”

He leaned his cheek on a hand. “Don’t be naive,” he replied, boredly glaring at her. “Your better judgment is clouded by your obsession with me.”

“Huh, and you’re not entitled yourself for thinking I’m obsessed with you?” she snorted as she unpacked her study materials. One glance at her book promptly reminded Dowoon that this was a class for future business majors, a hereafter uninvitingly laid out in front of him. 

“I  _ wish  _ that was just my entitlement. If you’d stop chasing after my dick, then you can feel free to point fingers.” 

Indignation distorted Hyorin’s face. “Like I mentioned, I know why you’re still resisting. A few years back, remember who felt so indebted to kiss me?” 

“Well thank god that never happened,” Dowoon dryly chuckled. “Things have changed now. For the best,” he emphasised, not breaking eye contact with her. She huffed and turned away, splitting open her book and staring ahead of herself. 

Thirty minutes must have gone by with silence stretched out between them, the class having already begun. Just as he predicted, it bored him to death. As he gave it his best effort to collect the fruit of this class’s labor, his face must’ve sketched out an absolute lack of interest because Hyorin’s eye roll was blatant aside from it being meaningfully loud. 

“You know, I don’t want to be here too,” she whispered out of respect. Dowoon flicked his gaze to her, watching her glossed lips scowl at his lassitude. “But at least I don’t go around pulling a face like it’s physically torturing me to be here.”

“Maybe it is physically torturing me to be here,” Dowoon responded. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she huffed behind the sleeve of her cardigan. “Good looks are only skin-deep, I see.” 

“Why do you even care?” he shook his head and leaned back into his chair, bumping the base of his head against the backrest. 

“I just feel extremely bad for the people who teach you. You’re one insufferable student.” 

“They get paid to do this,” Dowoon rationalised. Of course someone with his background would immediately relate everything to money. “Besides, if you don’t want to be here, then why are you?”

“Because I’m not like you,” she quietly lashed out. “My parents don’t own the kind of money your parents do. They can’t just pay for school and tutor lessons without me showing up and not grow a dent in their bank accounts. Interrupt me if you need, you might not be familiar with financial struggles.” 

“And yet they pay for your top-drawer manicurist almost every week. Stop me if you need, you might not realise it,” he snorted. “Stop being sarcastic. I didn’t ask to be born into this family, like I didn’t ask for tutor lessons, like I don’t want to study business.” 

“Oh, the stereotypical rich brat who goes against the wills of his evil parents and wants to run away, so turned off by his immense prosperity and all he’s ever known” Hyorin said in a derisive, mocking tone, at which Dowoon’s eye remained indifferently still. “For a boy who was intelligent enough to know money doesn’t buy happiness, you sure are stupid about taking advantage of the wealth so easily offered to you.”

“It wasn’t ‘offered’ to me,” Dowoon snapped, throwing a quick glance at the teacher who didn’t seem to notice their bickering at all. “It comes with a price, and that price is my future.”

“ _ Bright  _ fucking future!” she asserted, wide-eyed and clearly bothered by the injustice. If Dowoon was being honest, he saw eye-to-eye on that matter -- perhaps on how lucky he supposedly was. But everyone, regardless of their backgrounds, had different problems which might not be understood by others. And as Hyorin demonstrated, some just refused to be level with the differences. 

“ _ Why  _ the hell do you care so much? It’s not like I’m flaunting it to your face or anything, I--”

“Yes you  _ are _ ,” Hyorin accused in a punctuated hiss, flinging back her long hair with a very feminine yet angry gesture. She cleared her throat at her outburst and checked on the teacher, still blithely oblivious to their aggravating exchange. “I  _ care  _ because while you fart money and skip classes, I have to study hard and make space for a future that, mind you, I don’t want either! All because my brother failed his studies and my parents thought their second child was just a substitute from hell!” Hyorin finished her sentence red in the face, and Dowoon couldn’t tell whether her anger boiled behind her cheeks or her lungs were just deprived of air. 

Acceptably, Dowoon might have severely misjudged Hyorin on the grounds that she seemed somewhat bound to superficiality, which was an irony in and of itself. Perhaps Hyorin couldn’t be confused with people like Yuri, after all. Regardless, Dowoon’s judgment had been shallow, too.

“What, was he a drug dealer or something?” he asked. His sudden spark of interest seemed to calm her in a way that Dowoon didn’t expect. She was like a child who had been crying for candy and was finally given what she wanted after throwing a fit. 

“Absolutely not,” she sighed, dropping her gaze to the center of her notebook. “Actually, he was an impeccable student. Straight A guy, participated to the stupid charity events hosted by our school, read books to children, you know, the typical shit a book nerd would do.” She paused, leaving enough time for Dowoon to ponder about those charity events hosted by their school. He never recalled even hearing about one. “But the thing is...” Hyorin continued, dispelling his thoughts. “He always got second. There’s just… this one guy who bettered him in like, every single thing, even in sports. No matter what Daehyun did, he thought he was never good enough if he didn’t beat that guy. That’s just how he continued living, comparing himself with some Superman mimeo when obviously, everything he committed to was way more than enough. He couldn’t handle the setback, and thought that if he couldn’t get first place, then he’d rather get nothing at all.” She tapered off with a hint of bitterness, twisting her lips. Her stare was dead set on her fingers capping and uncapping her pen. 

“So he just dropped out?” 

“Yeah,” she shrugged weakly. “He did.”

“What an idiot,” Dowoon said honestly, scoffing. Hyorin snapped her head to regard him with belligerence, probably thinking he was a huge, insensitive asshole. She wouldn’t be wrong. 

But then she deflated, and turned her softening gaze back to the table ahead of her. “In a way, maybe. But he’s my brother, and I hate seeing him rotting away at home, doing nothing at all except read some pointless, know-it-all psychology books on how to get out of depression. Honestly, it’s not like any of those money-suckers ever helped him even get out of bed to shave, let alone depression. I hate that my family is doing nothing about it, either, except give him scornful looks. He needs help, fast, before shit will worsen. Daehyun despises himself.” 

“Ah,” Dowoon sneered when a realisation struck him. “So you’re saying what your brother had is an object of envy, yet he threw it all away because he was unhappy with being  _ second.  _ And you judge me for being unhappy with my wealth and the path my parents are forcing me to choose?”

“This isn’t about you, Dowoon, so stop trying to make it seem that way,” she frowned, shoving her pen into her pencil case. “At any rate, he’s got it bad. He’s got it way worse than you and your millionaire parents who wipe their asses with hundred dollar bills, and certainly better than that indecent skank at school.”

Immediately, Dowoon sat up and crossed his arms over the table, leaning into Hyorin’s personal space. It was disconcertingly close for comfort, but intimidating in a way. Hyorin shrank into herself under his unflinching glower. 

“Now don’t go assuming shit just because your brother’s life sucks,” he spoke slowly in his deepest, lowest voice, which made her cower back even more. “We have different lives, different problems, and we’re all responsible for what we fucking make of them. It’s nobody’s fault that your brother sucks at standing up for himself. Not mine, not Wonpil’s, not that dude who knew what he was doing with his life. You can bitch all day about it, pitying yourself more than you pity him because you have to live life in his stead, but nothing changes.” 

Hyorin stayed motionless, arms cradling her front defensively even when Dowoon retreated to his normal sitting position. Tears seemed to have made their way to the corner of her eyes. “You’re a fucking jerk,” she mumbled. 

“Everyone’s a fucking jerk,” he retorted sharply. “Get real.”

They didn’t speak or exchange a single glance for the rest of their tutor lesson. 

\--

Their tiny town was ensconced between borders of mountains where the cold, frigid wind bounced and left one with frostbitten toes, unkind to all the flip flop-wearers out there. On the ordinary, the weather was cold enough to bring out jackets, even during summer. Now, the town was caught in yet another dusty hailstorm among other kinds of drizzles. It seemed this year’s winter wound up being the same as the previous, monochrome and lonely and sinister. 

Dowoon watched the grey exterior whirl by from the window of his seat, shoulders bumping with Wonpil each time the bus halted its wheels to curve the road. Summer was graced with a somewhat pleasant climate and a peeking sun, though the breeze raised the hairs. Spring painted a beautiful, joyful sheet of all the colours on the spectrum, inviting flighty insects and cold sunshine. Autumn was a burst of fiery reds, oranges and yellows, sullen with the occasional downpour. But winter was the absolute worst -- procuring only a dull, lifeless scenery filled with haze and an all-consuming greyness. Snow rarely fell beautifully, just turned into muddy puddles of water. Truly the weather for mourners. 

Beside him, Wonpil numbly stared ahead of himself, arms crossed in a telling sign that something weighed thoughtfully on his mind. But then, Dowoon also had his arms crossed, but that was mainly because he was cold and the bus’s heater was as run-down as the vehicle itself. 

They were on their way back from Magnolia where Wonpil managed to unleash whatever made him so angry today flat into the balls that had the rotten luck to swing his way. It must’ve happened somewhere between the end of classes, while Dowoon picked up the loose ends that his coworker at the store conveniently left, and his volleyball training. Seeing the budding resentment in Wonpil, Dowoon suggested bringing him back to his house, something to which Wonpil had sprightly agreed. But now, it seemed his mood was nowhere near pacified. 

Dowoon nudged Wonpil with his elbow. “Something on your mind?”

“Yes,” he grumbled, “don’t talk to me.” 

“Woah, ok,” Dowoon staggered at Wonpil’s off-kilter brooding. He hadn’t suspected the sulking to be directed at him. He angled himself towards Wonpil, scanning the frown tugging at his brows. “What’s the matter?” 

“Ugh, the cheek!” Wonpil snarled, uncrossing his arms and gesticulating the emotions that his voice or face could not faithfully express. “First of all, you never explained to me who the hell Yuri was when you told me you would.” 

Oh. That was already a few days ago, or perhaps a whole week, Dowoon had lost track. “Well, I’m sorry, I forgot. If you wanted to--”

“Second of all,” he interrupted. Dowoon snapped his jaw shut, darting his eyes to the side as he wondered where this temper flare-up was coming from. “I saw you talking to that girl earlier today. You are the least sly person on this earth, Dowoon. I saw you being all flirtations with her. She was scuffing her foot in the ground and playing with her hair. She was asking you out!”

“Woah woah, what girl?” Dowoon asked, very much confused at the sudden incrimination. And frankly, he didn’t even remember talking to anyone other than Wonpil and his manager. 

“That girl during lunch break! Oh, Dowoon… I know I said we shouldn’t associate with each other at school but don’t you think your act is a bit too real?” At this point, Wonpil looked nothing short of despairing, peering up at Dowoon through creased eyes and a pair of downturn lips. Even with the clarification, Dowoon’s mind had trouble catching on to Wonpil’s impeachment. 

“I’m sorry Wonpil, but I really don’t remember talking to a girl today,” he shrugged. 

“She had a plaid bow in her hair. And I’m pretty sure she hiked her skirt higher when she went up to you. Also, did you not notice the pink lipstick? You indulged her!” Wonpil was showing all the emotions on a continuum in one sentence, which really didn’t help clear the fog Dowoon’s mind was buried in. “Seriously Dowoon!”

“Ah,” Dowoon sighed and closed his eyes, finally cognisant of the situation. “Yeah she was asking me out, but I didn’t even give her five seconds.” 

“No, you gave her all the time in the world,” Wonpil huffed, slumping over his seat and going back to spitefully glaring at the back of the driver’s head. “Seriously, are you sure you’re not into girls?” 

“What? What do you mean? I said no to her face, like I did many others.” 

“Yeah, ‘many others.’ Yuri and the rest of the female population are throwing themselves at you and all you do is quietly say no to them. Assert yourself!” Wonpil tossed a sideways glance to him, and with that vague glower roused fiery anger. “Are you even gay?”

That threw Dowoon for a loop. He hadn’t gotten the answer figured out himself, how was he supposed to explain to Wonpil? “I don’t care what I am, I only care about who I like, ok?” he assured, unfolding his arms and enduring the cold to squeeze Wonpil’s shoulder. That was short-lived as Wonpil instantly wrenched himself away from the touch, further confounding Dowoon. 

“You don’t even  _ look  _ gay. You look like a Straight Straighterson he-man hogging girls in for a one night stand every damn night,” Wonpil sulked, sinking deeper into his seat. Somehow, that amused him. 

“Are gay people supposed to look a certain way?” he asked, giving his attempt at comforting Wonpil’s shoulder another shot. When it wasn’t ruthlessly shrugged away, Dowoon slithered his whole arm around Wonpil. 

“Ok, fine,” he defeatedly admitted. “You don’t even  _ seem  _ gay.”

“Not even remotely?” Dowoon teased in a slightly higher voice which seemed to put a crack in Wonpil’s rigid, sullen features. 

“Not even remotely,” was the feeble confirmation. Proving he truly was the embodiment of ‘actions speak louder than words,’ Dowoon leaned in and poked his nose in Wonpil’s neck, nuzzling in the warmth. His cold earlobe probed at his temple. 

“Agh!” Wonpil giggled. “You’re freakin’ cold!”

They engaged in a brief tugging war of clothes, Wonpil blistering in laughter while Dowoon did his token best not to shriek like a girl when Wonpil’s finger inadvertently poked his ribs. As they settled, their hands came together, fingers laced and knuckles red. Wonpil’s fashion of slumping into his chair transformed into him resting his head on Dowoon’s shoulder. 

“For real Wonpil,” Dowoon sighed, stomach still hard from resisting laughter. “I’m not trying to take my revenge for not being able to touch you at school. I don’t care about any of those people. It’s been that way for quite a while now, and I don’t intend to change anything.” 

Wonpil seemed mellow atop his shoulder. They rocked together as the bus cut across a speed bump. “So girls don’t attract you?”

“Nobody attracts me. Nobody but you.” 

At that, Wonpil shifted his head to look at Dowoon. He met the gaze, held it for a few seconds, then he leaned in and placed a kiss on Wonpil’s lips. 

“We’ve never established it, but I want to call you my boyfriend,” Wonpil mumbled, snuggling into the warm sleeve of Dowoon’s jacket. His half finger wool gloves were pleasantly warm on his palm. 

“Call me anything you like,” he said, bringing his other hand to sweep Wonpil’s hair to the side. He regarded the strands carefully, a pang of anger clawing at his chest. With the lightest of touches, he tugged at the bleached, silky pieces of Wonpil’s hair. “I love your hair. In a way, it makes you look like an up-to-date fashionista,” he complimented, deciding to take the sting out of a debacle by turning it into something that could be appreciated. 

Wonpil brought their laced hands to his lap, gently caressing Dowoon’s knuckles with his thumb. “You might be the only one to think that,” he muttered convincingly. 

“And that’s a good thing,” Dowoon smiled, though he was sure Wonpil would fail to see it. 

By the time they made it to Dowoon’s room, it was already somewhere past midnight. Good thing today was a Friday, because his fragmented sleep would never bestow him enough energy to live off on a school day. 

They pushed past his door sealed by the lips and grinding by the hips, entering into seething darkness. Dowoon took advantage of their blindness to discard Wonpil’s thick coat and peel off his half finger gloves, uncaringly tossing them to the ground where the rest of his laundry was spread. Wonpil hotly responded by giving him tongue, mobile hands tugging at the back of his neck. 

It was like they’d drank before arriving home, high on whatever the fuck winter’s air was made of. Dowoon’s head was reeling with arousal as they busted open the door to his conjoined bathroom, stumbling into yet another dim space. The glow from lamp posts outside flooded the ground with silver patches through his window, but the glint didn’t help him discern much above Wonpil’s knee. 

Wonpil’s lips were a cold wet, but his tongue was searing the inside of his mouth. He was suddenly pressed to the cold wall of his bathroom and found himself holding onto Wonpil for support. Contradicting his initial shyness at which point he had literally fled from Wonpil, Dowoon gladly met the buckles that Wonpil’s hips worked with sloppy alertness. As suddenly as he had kissed Dowoon, Wonpil teared himself away and used the back of his hand to wipe his lips, seeming to be gazing into Dowoon’s eyes with a smirk perched upon his lower features. 

“You don’t need this,” he complained, gripping at his shirt and slowly unbuttoning it. Arriving at the bottom hem, Wonpil slid his hands back to the collar and promptly shoved it around Dowoon’s shoulder. He paused when the shirt was stuck on Dowoon’s elbows, sweeping his eyes all across his bared chest and stomach. Thoroughly out of breath, Dowoon all but expected Wonpil to moan so indecently at the sight, forgetting about ridding Dowoon of his shirt and instead focusing on the canvas in front of him -- a canvas on which he had already partly painted with his mouth a week prior. 

Dowoon finished the half-done job and pulled his hands out of the sleeves, close-mouthedly grunting at all the attention Wonpil bathed him in. Unlike Wonpil, he wasn’t quite sure what to say. No words of incentive came to his head, at least not as naturally. Immersing himself in the preludes of… whatever was happening right now certainly did not fall into his common habits. 

Thankfully, Wonpil knew exactly what he wanted, and what he was going to do to get it. 

“You drive me crazy,” Wonpil whined, pushing himself against Dowoon and aligning their groins. If the twitching in his pants wasn’t enough before, he sure as hell could hardly breathe with all the cloth smothering him right now. 

“Whatever you’re doing,” Dowoon sighed out, surprised at how husky and dirty his voice sounded echoing in his bathroom. “I love all of it,” he tried to motivate. Wonpil simply smiled before diving into his neck, sucking hickeys into the skin. He was careful not to place them too high for the whole world to see. After all, they both had circumstances that would bitterly condemn those love bites. 

They spent at least a half hour loving with their mouths and undressing with their hands. Wonpil was stripped to his boxers, while Dowoon still had his pants on, suffocating the obvious hard-on unchastely twitching with each kiss. The touch that scorched him rooted him to his place, leaving him to seek for air in Wonpil’s lungs, bracing himself by his thin waist. Before long, Wonpil pulled away breathlessly, hair made a complete bird’s nest, which only served to incinerate the monster coiling in Dowoon’s lower belly even more knowing it was his hands’ work. 

Swiftly, Wonpil dropped to his knees, fixing Dowoon’s hips with the most fascinated of looks he had ever seen on his face. He seemed to be painstakingly riveted by the band of Dowoon’s underwear peeking from his pants, circling his hips. He tugged at it tentatively, red swollen lips parted in awe. 

Dowoon’s breath got caught in his already heaving throat, heart pounding so fast he was afraid he’d die. He watched Wonpil’s lethargic maneuvers testing the hem of his pants, hands roaming absolutely everywhere but  _ there.  _ Dowoon’s eyes quaked with want, his vision hot and hardly even focused, observing the slope of Wonpil’s sculpted nose, his entranced expression, his lips and the lineage of lip-shaped bruises along his collarbones. His lungs burned, either from breathing too much or not enough, he didn’t have the mind to distinguish. 

Wonpil had his fingers pinched upon the zip of his bracket, slowly,  _ so _ slowly pulling it down. The button of his pants was popped, exposing the glaring red of his underwear, visible even in the dark. His knees threatened to give in, unable to take the intense pleasure weakening every joint in his body. 

Wonpil peered up at him with his hands seizing either side of Dowoon’s hips, his eyes hooded and blurred with sheer lust. His lips were in a devastated condition, as was his hair. But everything was dark and Dowoon’s brain capacities were abandoning him to deal with his carnal desire the raw, primitive way. 

“I’ll give you something to remember tonight,” he said, voice broken and silky, dripping with desire. If the sweat trickling from the tips of his hair didn’t show how hot everything was enough, Dowoon could undeniably feel it burning between his legs, in his hands, within his chest where his heart could cave in at any moment from beating at an alarming rate. He felt helpless, untalented and at a loss. All responsive wits had left him. He was reduced to a man with a dead brain screaming for relief. 

Wonpil loosened his pants and dragged it to the center of his thigh. His eyes were not even on his own doings but instead fixated on Dowoon’s hot and bothered face begging for one thing. He smiled through the steamy fog hanging in the wake of their making out and sweating their lust, before pulling his pants all the way down to his ankle. His smirk was still there, the telltale sign of his enjoyment. Accompanying his wandering hands teasing the sensitive area under Dowoon’s navel, Wonpil’s spit-coated lips whispered words so dirty Dowoon might have decidedly lost his overheating mind:

“You’ll never want to fuck a girl again.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my eyes were starting to turn sore from proof-reading this so much, but i don't think i'll ever be satisfied with it. 
> 
> a little steamy action here, but i'm too rusty to make it explicit. sorry. 
> 
> if everything goes according to plan, we are 5 chapters away from the end!
> 
> hope you liked it! peace!


	10. (10)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things often have a knack for starting off perfectly well, and still ending in a complete disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smut ahead. this chapter was difficult to write, so i didn't proofread it lol
> 
> i referenced a song in the first part of the chapter, if you know it you're awesome <3

The rain pelted softly against his window the first time Dowoon woke up. He blinked a couple of times, adjusting himself to the gloomy morning sunshine. Dark clouds were draped across the overcast sky from where the rain poured, shrouding the neighbourhood in a blurry, greyscale crepuscule. 

Something pounded at the back of his eyeballs as he drifted into a clearer state of consciousness, thickly swallowing his saliva. Dowoon pushed himself on his elbow from where he was laid on his side, just then becoming aware of the weight numbing his arm and the warmth spilling from the skin-on-skin contact. 

Wonpil was sleeping soundly beside him, stark naked and barely concealed by his blanket. Dowoon’s insides squirmed at the sight, then at the thought of their late night activities. His heart tingled as he reached out to brush the bristles of hair that were poking into his sealed eyes. Wonpil’s lips fluttered before they settled into a calm, straight line. 

Knowing himself, Dowoon could never ease himself back to sleep, at least not so soon. Without removing his arm under Wonpil’s neck, he grabbed his phone from the floor, entangled in the pile of clothes they’d both hysterically relieved themselves of the night before. Dowoon’s chest swelled up as he recognised his glaring red underwear among the mess, quickly averting his gaze and pulling himself back to his bed along with his phone.

The first thing he noticed was the time. Nobody should be awake at 6:32 on a Saturday morning, it was too unreasonable an hour to already begin a free day. But like with many other things, Dowoon failed at conforming to the norm and there he laid in his bed, smelling of sex and losing blood in his arm if only to pillow Wonpil’s head as he undid the knots his earphones had tied themselves into with one hand. 

Where Dowoon would normally wake up into a bad mood, finding fault with his total inability to sleep to a satisfying extent, today, nothing really mattered or meant anything. He was simply thrown in an unmoving state of bliss, it seemed, still not quite earthbound from the seven stages of heaven his multiple orgasms shot him through yesterday night. Placing the buds of his earphones in his ears, Dowoon hit shuffle. Immediately catching on to the slow pinch of guitar strings bleeding into his ears, Dowoon closed his eyes as he listened to Muse’s  _ Unintended _ . 

_ You could be my unintended _

_ Choice to live my life extended _

_ You could be the one I’ll always love _

Something settled within him. It was a very strange feeling, and he couldn’t quite describe it to himself. Heavy, constricting, stealing the languid breaths in his lungs. The dull world outside still swayed with the wind, silver drops of rain knocking at the glass of his window. 

_ You could be the one who listens _

_ To my deepest inquisitions _

_ You could be the one I’ll always love _

As though on instinct, Dowoon shifted to cast his still drowsy gaze upon Wonpil, swallowing down the feelings that bubbled to the brim of his throat. Like always, his boyfriend seemed absent from reality, physically breathing but mentally gone to another place. Though he was just sleeping, Dowoon suspected it was the only time where he felt most at peace. 

_ I’ll be there as soon as I can _

_ But I’m busy mending broken _

_ Pieces of the life I had before _

For a reason or another, he wanted to cry. Maybe listening to music turned out to be a bad idea, after all, especially one reminiscent of his intense affections. Still, with his heart clenching and the rims of his eyes burning from the exertion of keeping his tears at bay, Dowoon did scarce to shut off the music. It was talking to him, unearthing something he should probably know. 

_ First, there was the one who challenged _

_ All my dreams and all my balance _

_ She could never be as good as you _

They didn’t go all the way last night. He wasn’t quite certain how to feel about that yet. It had begun with a mind-blowing blowjob that left him empty and shaking with never-before-known pleasure, and had ended with Dowoon returning the favour by humping Wonpil until they orgasmed at least three times throughout the night. Before he’d unrememberingly passed out, he might have seen the first few pale beams of the morning sun. With that in mind, maybe his throbbing, sleep-deprived headache made more sense now.

_ You could be my unintended _

_ Choice to live my life extended _

_ You should be the one I’ll always love _

Judging from the arm that was slung over Dowoon’s bare waist, Wonpil certainly couldn’t afford to let go of him, though he was in a place far away and blissfully oblivious to the hold he had on Dowoon. It felt comfortably weird to have the whole of his naked body laced with another person’s naked limbs, especially when the one to have him in such protective hold was someone his heart throbbed for. 

Dowoon’s assiduous watching must have worn him off because his lids suddenly weighed too much for him to keep peeling them back. His vision blurred, and before he drifted back to sleep, the one thing besieging his mind was how Wonpil had been all but  _ intended _ in his life. And that was the most astounding thing that ever happened to him since his birth. 

  
  


The second time Dowoon woke up, eyes not yet open, a human weight was squirming on top of him. Not just anywhere on top of him, as his scorched hot body tried to alert him, but outright on his groin. He grunted, not yet realising it was out of impure bliss, stretching on the bed. The weight only allowed him to go so far, and as Dowoon brought his hand to wipe the slumber out of his eyes, the phone that had been in his clutch fell flat into his face and slipped away to god knows where. The earphones that were once supposed to be there vanished, probably tangled in a jumble somewhere on the floor. 

If that was no sufficient wake up call, a wave of pleasure suddenly seized him, pushing a moan out of his throat and effectively shocking him to full consciousness. He felt warm hands slide up his naked torso, coming to a grip around either side of his shoulders. 

He opened his eyes to Wonpil sitting upon his pelvis, grinding down so Dowoon could acutely remember the curves of his backside without having to see it. Their bare bodies reacted together, swimming in all sorts of fluids. It seemed a part of his body had long woken up before him, burning in anger from being oppressed and not catered to. The rain outside still poured, thrashing and spilling down from his windowsill. The grey clouds seemed to be drifting in his room, enshrouding them in thin darkness.

“Ah, that’s nice,” he grunted, unthinkingly bringing his hands to grapple Wonpil’s hips. Wonpil smirked down at him, gaze lazy and cloudy, himself looking quite intoxicated by their physical junction. 

“Dowoon,” his raspy voice trembled, lowering himself to press scalding kisses to his jaw. “Do you want to--  _ oh _ …. do you want to go inside me?” 

Dowoon’s mind screeched to a tumultuous stop, yet his nether parts twitched with shameless vigor, agreeing, raging with desire. 

“We can’t…” he uttered as best as he could with an irreparable hard-on already so  _ close  _ to penetrating Wonpil. He met Wonpil’s eyes, now confused and irate, convinced that they just couldn’t venture any further right now despite Wonpil’s hips protesting otherwise. 

“Why not?” Wonpil sulked, slightly bobbing himself up and down and catching Dowoon’s tip with his movements. “You don’t want to fuck me?” 

Dowoon’s head short-circuited at the colourful words, but he had enough resilience to bear the brunt of even the most painful of arousals. “We don’t have condoms or lube,” he said through shortened breathing, sinking his nails deeper into the dips of Wonpil’s sides. 

“We don’t need them,” Wonpil asserted, promptly kissing Dowoon and licking his way into his mouth as if that could persuade him into his plans. Their bodies still rocked together, it was way too late to backpedal. If Dowoon didn’t end up orgasming in the approaching few minutes, he’d probably implode and die. But he knew he couldn’t go through with it, so he grabbed Wonpil’s jaw with one hand and pulled them apart.

“You need them, Wonpil,” he said with swollen lips, involuntarily bucking his hips upwards. Wonpil arched a brow at Dowoon’s contradictory reactions. It wouldn’t take much longer for him until he’d buckle under the weight of his lust, begging for release, so he had to be quick in assuaging Wonpil somehow. 

“What, you’re scared I might be contaminated or something?” Wonpil scoffed, pressing down harder into Dowoon’s groin. He grunted, woozy with pleasure. They were perfectly aligned, one final push from beneath would decidedly bury Dowoon into Wonpil’s puckering heat. 

“No, it’s not that,” he heaved out difficultly, voice still hoarse with sleep and darkened with fiery lust. “It’s just-- it’s safer. And it would hurt less.”

“I don’t care about that right now,” Wonpil gritted out, his hands getting tighter anchored on Dowoon’s shoulders with each thrust. “I just want you to fuck my brains out.” 

“Ah…” Dowoon moaned, flicking his gaze from Wonpil’s left eye to his right, intently watching his dilated irises. In the midst of his grogginess, an idea sparked within him. He laced his arms securely around Wonpil before flipping them over, spreading his boyfriend across the sheets. “We can use something else,” he whispered, placing a gentle kiss on Wonpil’s lips and slithering down to level himself with his backside. 

“Oh… what are you doing?” Wonpil asked, sordidly curious more than out of genuine confusion. Dowoon spat on two of his fingers, enmeshed in the sight of it dripping down lewdly. He’d never expected, let alone seen himself do anything like that before. Carefully, he split Wonpil’s legs to each side, staring at what they revealed to him like the blooming of a flower. 

Ignoring the raving erection upright between Wonpil’s thighs, Dowoon slowly sheathed his two fingers in Wonpil, trembling vehemently at the image of them disappearing and thoroughly sucked in. It was raw without lube, and his fingers burnt, but it gave him immense pleasure, the kind that silenced him with total enthrallment. 

“Come on Dowoon,” Wonpil urged, peeking from where he was laid prone on the bed. He did not even try to reach out to touch himself, Dowoon noticed. “ _ Oh _ ,” he cried out when Dowoon began moving his fingers with a slight curl. “Wait wait wait wait--” he choked out. 

“What?” Dowoon dazedly replied, searching through the haze of his lust for what had bothered Wonpil. His elbow teetered on its unsteady balance. 

“Dowoon,” he breathed out, red in the cheeks and hair gone astray. “I want to… I want you to record this.” 

His surprise managed to snap him almost completely out of his delirium, hastily removing his fingers from Wonpil. Dowoon’s lips were gaping, eyes hooded, brows raised in stupefaction. “You want to… what?” he asked. 

Wonpil didn’t hesitate when he repeated, “record this, what you’re doing.” 

“Are you sure?” Dowoon asked dumbly, only catching himself when it was too late. He knew Wonpil didn’t need to be educated on the precautions and the possible consequences. He’d known how it turned out the first time with excruciating awareness, he would know what to do the second time. Dowoon was in no position to remind him of any of that. Still, he wasn’t too fond of the idea.

“Yes,” Wonpil nodded, head heavy between his shoulders. “I trust you,” he gave a lopsided smile. 

Dowoon stared at him for a moment, sighing to show his dubious consent. At the backhanded approval, Wonpil reached behind his head, and emerging with his hand was Dowoon’s phone. He nudged it at his face, clearly giddy with what was coming. Dowoon took the phone with his unsoiled hand and opened the camera, decidedly caving in to Wonpil’s apparently persistent kink. 

Now more self-aware, Dowoon held up the phone and captured the perfect frame of Wonpil’s posterior, impatiently wiggling for insertion. It was as he hit record, perceiving his slick fingers reaching for Wonpil from another lens, that his breathing hitched, engrossed in the prospect of having their intimacy on tape. Maybe he enjoyed it more than he initially thought.

He led his two digits back into Wonpil, meeting hot resistance the deeper he went. He guardedly watched them sink, reappear with a new coat of shine, before sinking back in. Dowoon’s eyes flicked back and forth from the screen of his phone to the reality that unraveled in front of him. 

Not a moment later, his thrusts increased in pace, making Wonpil cry out in equal parts agony and pleasure, losing to the all-consuming thrill as he twisted himself left and right. Dowoon still watched without blinking, putting all of his focus on fingering Wonpil, unconsciously grinding against the sheets. 

“Ah! Dowoon!” Wonpil cried, whisking his wrist to his mouth so he could bite down on something. “Right there! There!” he choked against his skin. 

Dowoon nodded dazedly, captivated. Without warning Wonpil, he slipped in a third finger and angled them in such a way that prompted Wonpil to arch his back and grapple the sheets in his hands. His thighs struggled to stay spread, twitching and trembling. Something else also twitched between his milky legs, but they both took to neglecting it with full intention. Maybe Wonpil was a masochist in bed, and Dowoon a sadist.

“Do you feel good like this?” he asked, splitting his fingers, curling them and pertaining to his frantic thrusts. 

“Yes, fuck  _ yes _ ,” Wonpil hissed, now uncontrollably pushing back onto Dowoon’s fingers as if a noble spirit of lust had possessed him. Extremely content with the response, adrenaline rushed him to dig deeper, concentrating on the same sweet spot he’d found. 

Much too conscious of his phone filming them in a primitive trance, Dowoon resisted his moans, letting them battle his throat and die with the violent breaths coming out of his nose. His amateur, unsteady hand struggled to keep the tiny camera on the focal point, whirling in one or another direction before coming back to frame Wonpil’s finger-filled writhing backside. 

Heat pooled in his abdomen and between his legs where his arousal still ached for attention. Wonpil, on the other hand, had transcended a higher plane of existence as he kept his back curved away from the bed, thighs shaking mercilessly as he orgasmed on his soft convulsing tummy. 

At the sight of Wonpil coming untouched, Dowoon could no longer bear it and dropped the phone somewhere, completely forgetting about it as he gathered himself to his knees between Wonpil’s thighs. He grabbed himself and jerked off the rest of his arousal, making a deep noise within his throat as he spilled white strings all over Wonpil’s stomach. An intense crash of relief blew him away, his strokes now becoming languid. 

Finding the camera again, Dowoon switched it off and tossed it out of sight. His eyes landed on Wonpil, drunk-looking and still catching his breath, splayed out like a wrecked ship. Knees far too weak to handle his weight, Dowoon collapsed on Wonpil and used the last of his energy to sloppily kiss the corner of his lips. 

  
  


When they regained enough strength to clean themselves up, they took to lounging around in Dowoon’s bathroom. Wonpil stood facing the mirror above the sink, wiping the tears at the corner of his eyes and the wet trails across his cheeks with a tissue. Dowoon passively observed him from the toilet seat, how his bony little frame shrank in one of his old shirts. Now that Dowoon thought about it, he’d rarely seen Wonpil outside of their school’s plain sets of uniforms, and he greatly appreciated the change. 

“So,” Wonpil spoke up, discarding the tissue in the bin and leaning against the rim of the sink. He crossed his arms and swept his gaze from Dowoon’s sweatpants-clad legs to his face. “Are you going to tell me who Yuri is now?” 

He sighed. “What kind of pillowtalk is this?”

“I’ve been waiting,” Wonpil said, raising a brow. “Do you have something to hide?” 

There was no place for him to sidestep the confrontation, so Dowoon shifted in his seat and propped his elbow on the toilet tank. “You want me to be blunt?” 

“Yeah,” Wonpil weakly answered, discernibly taken aback. What was there to be  _ blunt  _ about, he might be wondering. 

“Yuri is my future wife,” he said calmly, holding eye-contact with Wonpil. 

“Excuse me?” Wonpil suddenly blurted, face screwed up with disbelief. He uncrossed his arms and anchored them on his waist. “Your future  _ what _ ?” 

“Listen,” Dowoon sighed, running a hand through his hair. He couldn’t bring himself to play with Wonpil’s emotions right now despite his possessive tendencies. “I didn’t agree to this. At least not yet--”

“Not yet?” Wonpil’s eyes widened, anger now beginning to show. 

“Hey, let me finish,” Dowoon snapped. Wonpil pressed his lips together, chastised. “There’s something you gotta know first. My parents want me to inherit their business, but I don’t care about it at all. In fact, I’d hate to own it. But they’re so desperate that they’re planning this… this wedding with some girl whether I consent or not. Her parents own a similar business and by wedding us, my parents will be able to expand. You know, all that profit bullshit.”

Wonpil silently nodded, eyes bound to the ground. 

“They’ve threatened me before, once,” Dowoon continued. “But I never thought they were going to go as far as bringing the girl over without warning me beforehand. Your first time seeing her was also my first time. I was shocked too, you know.”

“Oh, Dowoon,” Wonpil stepped forward and placed his hands on his shoulders, sliding them up his jaw. They peered into each other's eyes for a moment before Wonpil gathered Dowoon’s head into his embrace. He retaliated by pressing his own hands behind both of Wonpil’s thighs. 

“I’m ok,” he chuckled, thumbing the inside of Wonpil’s legs. “They’re not gonna marry us if I just accepted to inherit the business. They’ll let me do whatever I want, date whoever I like, as long as the company is still under our name. I had no reason to care about all that because I was already doing what I wanted. Up until now…” he trailed off, unseeingly gazing at the open door of his bathroom. “Until they thought making me choose between the freedom of my career and the freedom of my future was fair. In this world, it’s really rare to have both.”

“What, what are you going to do then?” Wonpil released his head and crouched down to cross his arms over Dowoon’s lap. From this distance, Dowoon noticed how thick his eyelashes were. 

He lowered his eyes and peered out of the door, searching for something beyond the bathroom. Wordlessly, he nodded at a black duffle bag innocuously settled under his desk, not looking as full as Dowoon had made it. Wonpil whipped his head around towards where Dowoon had vaguely indicated, frowning at his inability to conceive what Dowoon meant. He didn’t quite expect Wonpil to understand straight away, of course, and left him to confusedly peruse around. 

He knew realisation dawned upon him when his facial features turned lax at once and his eyes hesitantly met Dowoon’s awaiting ones. “The… the bag?” 

Dowoon nodded, struggling to elaborate. “When I have enough money.”

Stupefied, Wonpil stiffly stumbled back to a stand, his eyes flickering all over Dowoon’s face as though waiting for him to burst out in an exclamation, telling him he was joking. But he wasn’t. 

“So you… you work at that crippled convenience store… because you’re saving money to run away?” Wonpil had always been better at tearing Dowoon’s thoughts straight out of his brain. He shifted his weight to his other leg. “Dowoon, that’s crazy.”

He knew, imagined as much. What did stupid, naive teenagers like themselves know about running away? The inspiration and solutions had yet to strike him, but humans were equipped with their fair share of survival instincts, and Dowoon counted himself to be quite low-maintenance anyway. Both features were sustainable enough for him to lean on while he gathered more money for a comfortable life. At least, he considered himself capable. 

“Do you see any other option?” he said, well-aware that there  _ had  _ to be other options, and that his solution was haywire aside from it being egregious. 

“I don’t…” Wonpil surprisingly observed, rubbing his hand down Dowoon’s bare back. Birds of similar feathers flocked towards the same logic and solution, it seemed. The ticket to freedom was always to flee to somewhere far away from where their troubles had birthed. Wonpil himself relied on a similar escape. “So you must have been working for a long time.”

“Only started some time last year, but I’ve been working five days a week. I think it’ll be worthwhile, I make enough money for now.” He shouldn’t be, really, but given the number of employees, the division of salary amounted to quite a generous allowance.

“You can’t survive on a stack of money you made from working at some remote convenience store, don’t be crazy,” Wonpil softly reprimanded, frowning down at him. He seemed reluctant, probably in the same way that Dowoon couldn’t quite berate him for his reckless desire to record their sexual activities. It was essentially stupid to point out the obvious, when these were all but impulsively envisaged.

“Wonpil,” Dowoon sighed. “It’s either I get out of here as soon as I graduate, or I marry someone I don’t even know for the sake of my parents’ company. We both know which option sounds better.” 

Wonpil nervously bit his lips, unconsciously scratching at Dowoon’s upper back. “At least come with me. Stay at my house, however long you need to. We’ll even go to Jeju together and we can figure it out when we get there. Doesn’t that sound so much better?”

“It’s complicated,” Dowoon shook his head, patting Wonpil’s thighs. Somewhere within, he was flattered just as he was scared that Wonpil wanted to merge their plans. “Your mom would lose her mind.”

“Yeah but…” 

Not wanting to continue the conversation, Dowoon lurched to his feet and rounded Wonpil to reach the door of his bathroom. The hands on his back limply fell. He went to his closet and pulled out a black shirt before slipping himself inside it. He turned back to regard Wonpil. The boy was still in the bathroom, idly bunching the hem of Dowoon’s shirt in his hands over his thighs. 

Guilt tingled in his stomach. “So, your volleyball competition is coming up,” he said, reclining against the frame of his bathroom door and dipping his hands in his pockets.

“I know,” Wonpil let out a sigh he seemed to have been withholding. “I’m nervous, and you were right. It’s not my passion, I suck at it, but I need to qualify.”

“You can always back away, if it’s too much,” Dowoon said, making a point to glare at Wonpil’s badly bruised knees. His wrists had also started to collect faint traces of bruising. “Maybe six months is not as long as you might think.”

Wonpil walked out of the bathroom, the excess of Dowoon’s shirt billowing by his sides. His arms found Dowoon’s middle and he hugged him tight. Dowoon returned the embrace, sinking his face into Wonpil’s shoulder. 

“With the way things are looking right now,” Wonpil’s voice was muffled as he spoke, “it’s just insufferable. I hate this place so much, Dowoon. It’s traumatising. I just want to get out of here. Just… just not without you.”

Dowoon didn’t need to say a word to agree. He simply caressed Wonpil’s back with the softest of touches and closed his eyes, willing the circumstances to bend to fit them for once instead of having them fold under failures upon failures. 

\--

A week before Wonpil’s upcoming competition, Dowoon sat in the cafeteria with his loyal lunch mate, Taeyung. Nothing fell out of the ordinary. His lunch was still lacking in appeal, he continued to stare off into space, Taeyung opted for stuffing his face with the food that Dowoon didn’t eat, they didn’t speak a word as the sound of chattering buzzed on around them. Their peace was mutual and unbreakable, only until Hyorin and Sungsoo came along, towing with them equally tired faces. 

“You forgot this in class,” was Hyorin’s weary fashion of greeting, swinging something dark and hard across the table. It spun towards him, and revealed itself to be his phone when it settled. Dowoon frowned, cursing her for handling his costly objects with such lack of caution. He decided to stay silent about his first world qualms and watched his friends take a seat across him and Taeyung. 

“Surprising to see you Woon,” Sungsoo mused tiredly, sticking his hand into his bag to retrieve his lunch. “Haven’t seen you around lately.” 

“Hm,” he replied disinterestedly. 

Sungsoo paused in his rummaging, briefly fixing him with a pair of raised eyebrows. Dowoon would never understand people’s need for answers or probing when he was exhibiting the perfect social cues of  _ don’t fuck with me right now.  _ On Sungsoo’s left, Hyorin didn’t spare him a glance and peeled the lid of her lunch box. These two never bought from the canteen. 

“C’mon man,” Sungsoo laughed. “You disappeared for a while now, aren’t you gonna let us in on who you’re seeing?” he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Dowoon did not want to know what exactly he was referring to. 

“It’s none of your business,” Dowoon said, inspecting his nails. 

“Yikes man, what turned you into this?” Sungsoo chortled with surprise as though Dowoon was acting out of character, finally fetching his lunch box and setting it in front of him. “Where the fuck have you been?” 

Dowoon rolled his eyes. “Taeyung is perfectly content with not putting his nose in my business. Why are you and Hyorin so concerned with everything that I do?”

Sungsoo had his chopsticks halfway to his mouth when he dropped it back into his lunch. “Well, why shouldn’t we care?” 

“He’s been busy kissing Wonpil’s ass,” Hyorin sharply quipped, glaring straight at Dowoon. Her mouth nibbled at the chopsticks pressed on her lower lip. Dowoon’s stomach fell, but his front betrayed nothing beyond a twitch of the eye as he returned her glower. 

“Wait, what?” Taeyung interrupted himself from his feasting and directed his round eyes at Dowoon. He didn’t bother breaking eye-contact with Hyorin to appraise the shock, which was ridiculous to begin with. “You’ve been kissing Wonpil’s ass?”

“As in like, literally?” Sungsoo unnecessarily added. 

“You seem to be obsessed with the things that have nothing to do with you,” Dowoon sneered, leaning back into his chair and boring his eyes into Hyorin’s very soul. Her face, marked with twisted gratification, told the possibility of her knowing more than she should. 

“And you seem to be obsessed with losing your damn virginity. You think I don’t know that?” she provoked, now fully abandoning her chopsticks beside her lunchbox with a slam. His eyes narrowed at her, gritting his jaw. She scoffed at his indignation. “I mean, resorting to the obscene twink whose first time was at fourteen? Seriously? I knew you were desperate, Dowoon, but I didn’t think you’d stoop this low. Seducing the lowest hanging fruit there is out there.”

“Dowoon’s a virgin?!” Sungsoo shot off his mouth. 

“So are you Sungsoo,” Taeyung retorted. 

Dowoon didn’t answer, too choked up with furor and even the smallest coil of shame to speak and give emotional justice to his words. He willed his breathing to slow down, trying to stop clenching on his jaw so hard. His hands had turned into fists, trembling in their discolouring. For someone to speak so lowly of Wonpil, Dowoon wanted nothing but to restore their morals with a fist. For someone to expose the one thing he’d lied about on a continuum, he couldn’t care as much when the primary cause of his outrage was burning in the part of his brain responsible for violent impulses. 

Hyorin must have mistaken his deep anger for shame. She wore her smirk proudly atop of her smug expression. “That’s right, hurts like a bitch right? Everyone thinks Yoon Dowoon has it steamy in the bedroom because he’s so sexy and hot and has biceps, but in fact, he’s never gotten his dick touched before. What a wuss.”

“Yo bitch,” Taeyung asserted himself. “You’re blowing it out of proportion. Since when is chastity a big thing? Who fucking cares, other than your horny ass? Nobody here wears their rampant sex life like a badge, alright? It’s just you in your own world.” 

“Speak for yourself, asshole. Your own virginity must be because of some erectile dysfunction or something. I’m sorry you’re not old enough for Viagra yet, but don’t go lashing out on me,” she snapped, and before Taeyung could respond, she turned to Dowoon with her resentful glare, seeming to derive pleasure from her conversational vanguard. “And you, virgin 1.0, I’ve known from the start why you’ve been sidestepping me. You’re a coward, you’re scared of penetrative sex, and you’re too intimidated by me. You really think I wouldn’t know? I read dastard virgins' language like a book.” 

“I’m not surprised a self-centered bitch would think this way,” he quietly ground out, giving his best effort at unclenching his hand. Hyorin made some considerable points -- Dowoon  _ was  _ a coward. He’d ran away from Wonpil, running on flighty inclinations. He hadn’t been able to have proper sex with Wonpil when offered. And truly, it didn’t conflict much with what Hyorin disclosed so far. Nonetheless, all of that had nothing to do with his withdrawal from her advances. He did not want her because he shuddered at the prospect of sex with women.

“Just face it Dowoon,” she hissed at him. “You’re just embarrassed that you’ve never had sex before.” 

“You’re free to think whatever you like,” he stretched, although his muscles were spasming with the itch to fight someone. His indifference often pissed people off, and he needed to take advantage of that more than ever. “Just don’t project your egomaniac thoughts on me. You’re just wasting your time, and mine.” 

He left his words dangling in the air, but as he had broadcasted, he was just wasting his time being in the presence of those who looked down upon Wonpil, and those who placed a prominent sex drive in high regards. Dowoon walked away from the cafeteria, heaving out the breath that had been constricting his lungs. 

\--

A day before Wonpil’s volleyball competition, Dowoon laid in bed, sending the last texts of encouragement to Wonpil. Today was the first in a long time where he felt the genuine claws of exhaustion, promising him an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Wonpil had stopped answering him, most likely asleep in his own bed. Contented, Dowoon was about to dump his phone on his bedside table when it blew off uncontrollably. 

**Taeyung**

_ dowoon, it was you?? _

_ man this is actually not funny _

_ it’s bad, dude _

_ hey, dowoon, respond pls _

_ i had to admit it was funny at first but now you’re just pushing it, just sayin _

_ [incoming call from Taeyung] _

_ yo pick up _

_ god _

_ i’d say you’re a total asshole but would that even faze you?? _

Dowoon ignored it all, blissfully asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh. shit has hit the fan!
> 
> fanfiction aside, i want to shed light on other matters as well. i donated to a couple of black-owned businesses and signed some petitions, and i encourage you to do the same. you can find a lot of ways to help without money, links are all over twitter. i understand the being silent part, i myself don’t speak up much for fear of judgment or misinterpreted offense, but as long as you educate yourself or the others in your near vicinity as best as you can, i think it’s enough. i don’t quite understand the backlash some kpop idols are receiving for not speaking up as they usually are pretty restrained when it comes to social media posting, so let’s not blindly point fingers and assume the worst. we don’t know what they might want to do but can’t. korea is well-known for its censorship policies and controlled media. let’s just do what we can and focus on ourselves!
> 
> in any case, i really dislike being publicly political, but i do hope you enjoyed this chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> so, i have so many unwritten plotlines rotting in my google docs, and i want to exploit them with dopil, but i'm struggling badly with writing insecurities
> 
> feedback would be greatly appreciated so i can continue writing :( 
> 
> really wish i could help bring this dopil tag to a flourish !


End file.
